PLDT SME Nation has made great strides in making sure that local businesses have access to all the help that they can get in order to grow. And last week, in cooperation with a number of well-known ICT brands, it kicked off a new annual event called Tech Island at Pico de Loro in Nasugbu, Batangas City. The event saw a mixture of inspiring talks, informative breakout sessions, and fun gadget raffles that had attendees asking for more.
PLDT Tech Island, as the event is officially called, is all about giving SMEs a chance to explore their options for growth by way of exposing them to the brilliant ideas of excellent speakers and by connecting them with like-minded people gathered from all over the country. At this year’s Tech Island event, serial entrepreneur Gary Whitehill took the stage to talk about what makes SMEs succeed. He then made way for SMARTDevNet co-founder Paul Pajo, who had a fun talk on business ideas and turning them into reality.
Tech Island also featured breakout sessions with top technology brands like Microsoft, Samsung, Cisco, SAP, and Salesforce who gave audience members some insight into what business is like now and what it will be like in the future. During some of these breakout sessions, the companies even held gadget giveaways and some lucky attendees went home with brand new Android tablets.
The Tech Island event wrapped up with a beach concert party with the special participation of local celebrity Roxanne Barcelo, otherwise known as Roxy B. After first appearing on stage, she acted as host for the awesome gadget giveaways sponsored by Smart, which included Nokia phones, Polaroid tablets, Samsung Chromebooks, and Samsung LED TVs.
As the day came to an end, it quickly became apparent that Tech Island’s aim of connecting local business people with each other, and showing them what’s in store for them as they try to grow their businesses, was well and truly accomplished. Even the geeks in attendance, like yours truly, learned a lot about the possibilities the lie ahead for local SMEs nowadays here in the Philippines.
Apart from a minor kerfuffle involving registration and identification early on in the event, Tech Island was a huge success. SMEs in the Philippines will surely do good to look forward to the next installment of PLDT Tech Island next year. Event host and sponsors PLDT SME Nation, Smart Enterprise, Sun Business, and ePLDT will surely step up to the challenge of doing something bigger and better in 2015.
