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IN an
environment where fast Internet connection and data
transmission are required to gain headway, top-rank
managers and business owners no longer rely on basic
office gadgets for their information requirements. In
most cases, they reach for convenient and handy
gizmo—the indispensable mobile phone.
Nokia
Corp. recently introduced to the Philippines the Nokia
Mobile Entrepreneur Award, an accolade recognizing small
and start-up entrepreneurs who have come up with various
creative uses for their mobile phones in daily business
operations.
“It’s
time to surface new business ideas,” Nokia Philippines
general manager William Hamilton-Whyte told audience in
his speech during the recent ceremony to fete awardees.
The
Nokia Mobile Entrepreneur Awards recognizes young
businesses in emerging markets such as the
Philippines,
Indonesia, Vietnam and India who have made innovations
and increased the extent of mobile usage with the
end-view of generating higher revenues and providing
quality service to customers.
When
Alvin Kingson Tan, president of Technominds Inc., the
company behind mobile-loading distribution platform
D-Loads and other IT applications, heard about the
contest over the radio, he told himself, “Sasali ako
kahit suntok sa buwan [I’ll join even if winning is
next to impossible].”
Although
he submitted all the requirements on the last day of the
contest duration, he bagged the grand prize and became
the first Filipino to win the local Nokia Mobile
Entrepreneur Award.
He
received P300,000 and an E51 mobile handset from Nokia
and its partner, the Philippine Center for
Entrepreneurship (Go Negosyo).
Tan said
he will use of the prize money to help build up the
company that he established together with his parents.
“I will save it first, or maybe I will add automated
bills payment and remittance services in the future,”
Tan told the BusinessMirror.
He said
Technominds uses mobile services most of the time for
fast communication. “We always use our phone to access
e-mail and check our sales, voice, MMS [multimedia
messaging service] and broadcast messages,” emphasized
Tan.
For a
businessman who is always out of town, Oliver Kuy,
founder of Kuydigital Design Consultancy, admitted he
never knew the contest exists until a friend from Go
Negosyo asked him to join.
“After I
was encouraged to join, we prepared the financial
statements for auditing,” said Kuy. He was adjudged
first runner-up among 12 contenders and brought home
P150,000 and a Nokia E51 cell phone.
Checking
his personal mail via mobile phone for Tan is same as
scrutinizing the life of his business. “My people
communicate with me via mobile internet on top of
sending SMS and MMS for design concept approvals,” Kuy
said when asked how he applied mobile features to most
of his services.
“Both of
them [Tan and Kuy] are young and dynamic in applying the
creativity in using mobile services,” noted Hamilton-Whyte.
The two
major winners were joined by four other entrepreneurs,
namely: Mary Grace Pauline Llamas of Coconut Health
Farm, Francis Anthony Zapanta of Netland, Dennis Camus
of Autozone Paint and Bodyworks, and Paulo Tibig of
Vintel Logistics, Inc.
Before
giving the awards to winners, Hamilton-Whyte said Nokia
expects the use of mobile phone to access the Internet
will increase further. “There are three billion people
today and 40 percent of them can access the internet
using mobile handsets,” Hamilton-Whyte noted.
He added
that “in 2010, people will (globally) access internet
using their mobile phones.”
To live
its commitment of providing positive changes in peoples’
lives and “connecting them to new opportunities,” Nokia
is trying its best to bring the power of mobility to its
clients. “We’re working on price structures with major
providers to make mobile internet more accessible for
the market,” Hamilton-Whyte said. |
