Our distinguished speakers and panelists, representatives from the private sector, members of the academic community, friends from the media, guests.
A pleasant morning to all!
Thank you for joining us in our annual gathering for the 5th Inclusive Innovation Conference. It is my pleasure to discuss our progress in promoting innovation and entrepreneurship across the country and to harmonize our new directions and strategies towards higher goals to further advance the country’s innovation and competitiveness.
The Department of Trade and Industry remains steadfast in our guiding vision of globally competitive industries with increasing strengths and linkages to the domestic and global value chains.
Allow me to reflect on our first journey a few years back in building the foundations of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship system of the country.
The beginnings of DTI’s innovation journey began in earnest with the conversations we had with speakers, experts, and participants at the first Manufacturing Summit in November 2016. These conversations converged on three key concepts, namely:
a) collaboration among stakeholders, particularly government, academe, and industry
b) inclusiveness in the process, production, and utilization of innovation; and
c) dynamic entrepreneurship as both the instrument and outcome of innovation.
We quickly followed through these concepts and operationalized and implemented these through a new industrial strategy in 2017, the Inclusive Innovation Industrial Strategy or (i3S). Aligned with and in support of President Rodrigo Duterte’s Zero+10-Point socioeconomic agenda, the i3S aims to grow innovative and globally competitive manufacturing, agriculture, and services sectors while strengthening their linkages into domestic and global value chains. Supporting the strategy is the interplay of competition, innovation and entrepreneurship, and productivity, where a highly liberalized market environment leads to more competition, which spurs innovation and productivity growth.
In the same year, DTI convened the First Inclusive Innovation Conference which discussed ways to push innovation across the country by maximizing the opportunities presented by Industry 4.0. In pursuit of the twin goal of providing solutions to societal and industry challenges that, at the same time, can find markets and spur economic growth, DTI and the Department of Science and Technology signed a Memorandum of Understanding. This formed the foundation of our collaboration to formulate the country’s Inclusive Filipinnovation and Entrepreneurship Roadmap (IFER) that seamlessly connects the search for solutions and the cultivation of users and markets, locally and globally.
In 2018 at the Second Inclusive Innovation Conference, we launched the Roadmap, this time with an expanded community that included National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), Department of Agriculture (DA), Department of Education (DepEd), Commission on Higher Education (CHED), Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), and Technical Education And Skills Development Authority (TESDA). The Roadmap contained recommendations and strategies for the country to seize market opportunities and address the challenges of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
The Inclusive Filipinnovation and Entrepreneurship Roadmap is a product of 18 months of stakeholder consultations throughout the country, with the technical support provided by the USAID-Science, Technology, Research and Innovation for Development project or USAID-STRIDE. The IFER focused on strategic directions along six major areas namely, 1) Government-Academe-Industry Collaboration; 2) Human Capital Development; 3) Access to Funding and Finance; 4) Innovation Policy and Commercialization of Research; 5) Support for Startups, MSMEs, and Large Enterprises; and 6) Development of Industry Clusters.
One of the key recommendations of the IFER was the creation of Regional Inclusive Innovation Centers (RIICs) in all the regions of the country. The Regional Inclusive Innovation Centers serve as the common platforms for various stakeholders collaborating to advance innovation and entrepreneurship in their respective regions. The RIICs adopt an ecosystem-wide approach to bridge gaps and increase collaborations between innovation stakeholders. These activities are grouped into three thematic areas which are: 1) mapping key innovation actors, initiatives, and efforts; 2) linking innovation players in government, academe, and industry through strategic dialogues; 3) and aligning key programs and services towards industry needs.
For DTI, the RIICs serve as the cornerstone of i3S and play a vital role in advancing and socializing DTI’s programs and projects for economic transformation. By focusing on the products, processes, systems and other solutions that can address problems that are unique to the regions, the RIICs initiate the focus on local innovations that can eventually find resonance in even larger markets or potential users and adopters in other regions of the country and possibly other parts of the world.
Together with the USAID-STRIDE project, we have jumpstarted nine local RIIC innovation programs that link innovation and entrepreneurship efforts, all with their respective regional brandings. These are:
Region 2 – SHINE Cagayan Valley – Sustaining Harvest through Innovation and Nurturing Enterprises in Cagayan Valley
Region 3 – THRIVE Central Luzon – Technological Hive of Regional Innovation for a Vibrant Ecosystem
Region 4A – LINC CALABARZON – Linking Innovation Networks for Competitiveness in CALABARZON
Region 5 – BRIDGE Bicol – Building Resiliency and Innovation to Drive Growth of Enterprises in Bicol
Region 7 – Startup Island
Region 9 – ZamPen InnoHive
Region 10 – OROBEST – Optimizing Regional Opportunities for Business Excellence through Science, Technology, and Innovation
Region 10 – ILIGANiCE – Innovation through Industry, Government, and Academe Networks and inclusive Community Engagements
Region 11 iSTRIKE Davao – Innovation through Science and Technology and Risk Resilient base Initiatives toward Knowledge Economy in Davao
Today, with the combined effort of the DTI Regional Operations Group and the Competitiveness and Innovation Group, we shall be expanding this network as we launch a collective DTI movement affirming our distinctive role in the RIICs.
As their name implies, the RIICs follow an “inclusive” process of innovation, in that it provides a chance for everyone, especially MSMEs, to have access to shared facilities, information, expertise, and resources for their improvement and growth as well as to form partnerships with various stakeholders in the region.
Hand in hand with other government agencies and stakeholders in the regions, DTI has become an active partner and provider of programs that can help build globally competitive industries, develop high value products from our natural resources and agricultural produce across most of the regions, and engineer new disruptive technologies. Further, these programs build from our current industrial manufacturing capabilities and showcase the vast opportunity in responsible eco-tourism. Indeed, through the implementation of i3S we aim to grow and innovate new products and services that will be our main thrust for economic progress and recovery.
Within the dynamic multi-sectoral ecosystem of the RIICs, DTI positions itself as the primary agent for 1) Identifying opportunities to move up the value chains, 2) Creating or discovering niches to compete on domestic and international markets, 3) Adding value to products, services, and systems, and 4) Discovering new, practical solutions that can continually respond to community or regional needs.
In relation to this, our strategic approach is to work closely with the primary producers of knowledge and research and development such as the DOST, state universities and colleges, and private higher education institutions. In these partnerships, DTI aims to take our homegrown R&D, technologies,and inventions coming from the universities, taking off in particular from the research and development (R&D) projects of DOST and leveraging on R&D facilities, technology business incubators, KIST parks, and shared service facilities, to create the next generation of products and other solutions that can be promoted and sold to the domestic and global markets. At the same time, we build an enabling business environment to commercialize these products.
The imperative to advance innovation and entrepreneurship through the RIICs becomes more pronounced given our experience in the health crisis, not to mention the recurring threats of natural calamities. Crises such as these become opportunities for generating new products and services that can cater to the ever-changing dynamics of consumer demands and behaviors, as well as the shifting business and value chain landscape.
Thus, as we navigate through the post-pandemic era, and taking note of the emerging and evolving trends, we now have to be prepared with programs for a future where:
- Consumers expect greater convenience and control over transactions
- Digital will be “normal”
- Consumers will be social and environmental advocates.
- Hi-tech interconnected value chains will be a part of the future lifestyle and business environment.
- More startups-scaleups will emerge
- Greater transparency, efficiency, and convenience of doing business will be expected from the government.
Although the pandemic has caused global economic downturn and disruption, it has also been an impetus for enterprises to pursue digital transformation all over the world.
That being said, and as reported by the Startup Genome – Global Startup Ecosystem Report, we’ve seen the Philippines being recognized as one of the top 30 Asian startup ecosystems in terms of performance. To date, we now have more than 700 startups and more than a hundred startup community partners who continue to support the development of this young and vibrant ecosystem.
Furthermore, with the implementation of the Innovative Startup Act, which provides benefits and removes constraints to encourage the establishment and operation of innovative new enterprises, we expect to see the accelerated development of new and innovative startups and enterprises that will address future societal problems and challenges of our country.
As evidence of our efforts in building the country’s innovation ecosystem, the Philippines continues to ride the momentum and rise up the Global Innovation Index rankings amidst the pandemic. Despite the slight setback for this year, we were awarded for the third time as an innovation achiever with the growth in Hi-tech, ICT Services, and creative exports despite some identified weaknesses. We’ve seen that the Philippines continues to be one of the emerging innovation ecosystems in Asia and is expected to have enormous growth backed up by the implementation of the Philippine Innovation Act and Innovative Startup Act.
Riding on this momentum, DTI takes an active role in growing and enabling the country’s startup communities and nourishing our young entrepreneurial talents in the technology and creative industries through Startup Development Programs. Some of these programs includethe Global Acceleration Program (GAP), SMART Link, and the Startup Acceleration and Incubation with DTI (AID).
With all that has been said, I reiterate that the foundation of innovation rests on a changed mindset and culture. This innovative thinking requires risk-taking, tolerance to the process of trial and error, a calculated allowance for failure, domain expertise and competence, disciplined execution, and financial accountability. It is now all up to us as innovation actors to inculcate the culture and mindset for the ecosystem that we aim to build.
In closing, I would like to extend my sincerest gratitude and appreciation to all Innovation Champions in the government, academe, and industry that I have worked with and who have journeyed with the DTI in these past six years. I am fully appreciative of the determination and strategic thinking that each of you has put into all our programs and initiatives even amidst the very challenging times. I am both convinced and inspired that though the future remains uncertain, we now know best how to arm ourselves with the positivity and clarity of purpose to make our common dreams of a nation of Innovators and Entrepreneurs become a reality.
As President Rodrigo Roa Duterte said earlier this year, “Innovation is our big push. This will keep our country on the growth path for decades to come.”
Maraming salamat at maligayang Pasko po sa inyong lahat! ♦
Date of Release: 15 December 2021