After undergoing a 60-day challenge to achieve milestones, five start-ups presented their accomplishments, challenges, learnings, and next steps to a selection panel comprised of xchange, Villgro Philippines, World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Philippines, The Incubation Network, and makesense. The selection panel assessed the entrepreneurs’ progress, learning agility, entrepreneurial mindset, and commitment to determine which of the entrepreneurs would go through to the Sprints stage of bootcamp.
Five enterprises were selected, including Ato Ani Biopack, AUDEO, Cloop, Nanolabs, and Salin PH, who will now continue their journey until August 2021.
- Ato Ani Biopack is developing packaging made from agricultural waste to replace single-use plastic packaging.
- AUDEO is creating a trading ecosystem for sustainable community projects, anchored on an ecobrick that is earth-friendly and budget-friendly.
- Cloop transforms and upcycles plastic waste into high value home and garden items.
- Nanolabs is a nanotechnology enterprise that is developing various nanotechnology applications with the use of plastic waste.
- Salin PH aims to reduce packaging waste by offering accessible and fair-priced refills for everyday products and providing SMEs with an easy to adopt system to transition to sustainable packaging materials.
Danielle Ralleca of AUDEO, had this to say about the 60 Day Challenge, “Being a part of the xchange bootcamp has been a game changer for us. In the past 60 days we laid out a set plan with them, which has allowed us to rethink our business model and identify key factors we were unable to see before.”
The Sprints stage of bootcamp consist of 9 modules on innovation, systems thinking, the entrepreneurial mindset, strategy, marketing and communications, stakeholder management, behavioral change, the circular economy, gender, diversity, and inclusivity, the basics of doing business in the Philippines, finance and accounting, and designing a pilot.
In addition to the masterclasses and workshops, each Sprint will have an ecosystem event. The first one was held on 8 June 2021. It was a webinar on An Ecosystem Approach to Solving for Plastic Waste – Perspectives from government, NGO, funding, and corporate sectors. The webinar brought different stakeholders together to start a conversation on what it will take to end plastic pollution. The speakers highlighted the different levers to address the plastic waste problem to spark ideas, questions, and actions around collaborating with other sectors.
