Startups from across Southeast Asia pitch ideas on risk reduction

During “Startups to the Resque,” a pitching competition organized by QBO Philippines at the Department of Trade and Industry’s Slingshot ASEAN 2017 on Oct. 20 at the Philippine International Convention Center, Pasay City, startups from across Southeast Asia pitched ideas to reduce the risks brought by pressing global issues.

Twenty selected enterprises used their existing products, services, and business models to present new ways to address environmental disasters, outbreaks or pandemics, and conflicts and violence.

From 20, the list was narrowed down to 6 startups, and three of them were selected as the winners.

E‑learning content provider FrontLearners, Inc. grabbed the top spot and received equity‑free $10,000. Artificial intelligence‑based startup ChatbotPH won the second place and received $4,000 while Singapore‑based BillionBricks went home with $2,000 for taking the third place.

Check out their cool ideas:

E‑learning for disaster preparedness

FrontLearners, Inc., a startup that provides e‑learning contents, presented “PREP Net,” an educational platform and network that provides “continuous and verified” disaster preparedness training for students.

The product, which costs ₱50,000, contains solar‑powered tablets with manuals that contains theoretical and practical drills for disaster preparedness and livelihood contingency and continuity planning.

“[The contents] are contextualized and you can focus on the necessities of the community, including community development action plans and readiness assurance is made possible by compliance analytics so we can monitor and track. Everything is transparent and verifiable,” Elaine de Velez, co‑founder and CEO of the company, said.

According to her, the platform has “centralized repository of critical information” that includes baseline data about the residents of a certain community, as well as roles and responsibilities of first responders during a disaster.

“The data are very accessible and very much updated and can serve as back up communication platform for the community,” she added.

Ms. De Velez added that they also incorporated an e‑school system, that enables the product to have thousands of curriculum based e‑lesson and e‑quizzes based on adapted learning.

“It is scalable because it works without internet, and it is solar‑powered. It is very scalable because the intent is to have it in every barangays and every mayor can access all the barangays and on the national level NDRRMC can have access to all barangays,” she said.

“For the past 20 years, our advocacy is to provide quality and affordable education for all, and now our advocacy is to provide disaster preparedness for all,” she added.

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Chatbots to the rescue

ChatbotPH, a startup led by Ron Baetiong, introduced “Resque Bot,” a chatbot template created to help minimize the risks brought by a disaster by allowing organizations to disseminate relevant information for preparedness and provide quick response.

“The lack of information to prepare for those at risk is always a big issue, especially in the age of fake news it’s hard to get and know which news is credible. We wanna try to alleviate more casualties just like what happened during [Typhoon] Yolanda and replicate how prepared the U.S. was during Hurricane Irma,” Mr. Baetiong, co‑founder and CEO of the company, said.

Using Resque Bot, users can also report incidents to an organization and donate or volunteer during recovery stage. The product, according to him, is designed for all organizations—government, non‑government, and private equities—that seek to provide help in the wake of a catastrophe.

“[You just need to] install the chatbot on a given cause’s page. Think of it’s like Siri being installed in your phone, but instead of installing it in your phone it’s gonna be installed in your Facebook page. Once someone signs in, [the organization] can now propagate direct information to them anytime regardless of their platform.

Whether [they’re on] web or mobile, even kids in the computer shop playing Dota, they can get the information right away,” he explained.

He said that the product is a proof of artificial intelligence’s flexibility as it functions not only for business purposes, but also for social goods.

“We just don’t make chatbots for a living. We actually train and maintain them, so it works for you. We’ve done a lot chatbots over the past years since we started, but Resque Bot was designed not to [gain profit], we wanna be able to help and give back using the technology,” he said.

“We know the technology, but regardless of all the information that we were able to get, if nobody acts on it, it’s gonna be a waste,” he added.

Shelter for people displaced by disasters

In 2013, Prasoon Kumar left his job as an architect and built BillionBricks, a Singapore‑based startup that designs and produces shelters for homeless families around the world.

“I’ve designed over 10,000 homes but each of those homes we’re built for somebody who already had a home, never for those who actually needed one the most,” he said.

In building the company, Mr. Kumar said he has a clear and simple vision “to end homelessness in the world.” Since its establishment, BillionBricks has already provided shelters to more than 4,000 people in eight countries.

“Our approach is very simple; we never design only for the poor, we innovate shelter solutions by looking at the people as our customers and not as beneficiaries. We always design solutions which can actually productize at mass scale for impressive and big impact,” he said.

During the competition, Mr. Kumar presented a tent‑like product that can be used as an alternative shelter of people displaced by a disaster or calamity.

“We are at a time when we see the maximum displacement of people for various reasons since the world wars. In fact about 200,000 people are displaced because of natural disaster every year,” he said.

The product, according to him, combines all the materials usually given by non‑government organizations (NGO) to families affected by a disaster. It can be used in all weather conditions and can be installed by one person in as fast as 15 minutes.

The biggest part of the shelter, which serves as the roof, has two sides that can be switched depending on the weather. Facing the outside, the reflective side traps body heat to keep people warm during summer season while the dark side prevents freezing temperature when flipped outside.

Mr. Kumar said the company has supplied over 550 of the product to India, Bangledesh, and the U.S last September. Humanitarian agencies have also started to purchase the product for $110, he added.