1Life's Work
A Heritage of Smallness = 21st Century Bigness
Before anything else, let go of your easily-prickable Pinoy pride for 15 minutes and read (or re-read) Nick Joaquin’s A Heritage of Smallness. In this influential essay, the one-time National Artist for Literature holds up a mirror to the Filipino Soul and eschews our love affair with all things small : “Society for the Filipino is... »
Bagong Araw
Sharing with you Hapinoy’s Music Video, “Bagong Araw”. The serendipitous story here is that last year, Bam attended a concert wherein our Head of Field Operations RG Salazar was performing with his band, Project Fusion. One of the songs they sang was “Bagong Araw” – to international friends, that’s translated as “Brand New Day”. Bam... »
Why Hapinoy is Like the iPhone
You’re probably wondering how in the world I came up with the following equation : Well, the truth of the matter is that lately, I’ve begun to become more comfortable explaining Hapinoy’s Business Model in this way. Most especially now that we’re in a stage wherein we can more tangibly share the next phase of... »
The SkyEye Project and the Ateneo Innovation Center
Ateneo student, inoventling, and crazy innovator/entrepreneur Matthew Cua woke me up early the other morning to check out his group’s new, crazy idea, the SkyEye Philippines project. The SkyEye team listed above. Not in picture are : JB , Chemical Engineer from La Salle; Serge Gonzales, 2nd Year Management Student (Chief UAV pilot), and Philip... »
Business Partners, not Beneficiaries
Last weekend, Reese Fernandez – President of Rags2Riches, Inc and my other/better half – conducted a transition workshop with the Rags2Riches Cooperative’s Board of Directors. The main content of the workshop was – and stay with me here – finance and managerial accounting. To appreciate the concept on why it’s a transition, one has to... »
Rags2Riches Looking for Talented Changemakers to Join the Cause :)
Dear Friends and Partners-In-Change, I would like to invite you to become part of Rags2Riches, Inc.; a social business enterprise (Corporation) creating Eco-Ethical fashion bags and home accessories, created by empowered women from Payatas, who upcycle scrap materials discarded by factories around the Philippines. We create Eco-Ethical lifestyle products with our partner designers Mr. Rajo... »
CyberPress awards Inovent as Startup of the Year for 2009
Woot!! Woot!! The IT Journalists Association of the Philippines (a.k.a. CyberPress) awarded Inovent as IT Startup of the Year for 2009. The other nominees in the category were Sulit.com.ph as well as ANTS. Unfortunately, Brian Quebengco was in the US so he couldn’t join myself and our partner Henry Nguyen for the awarding. Aside... »
My TEDx Manila Talk : Change, Inc – How Social Businesses Can Help Build A Better World
Sharing my TEDx Manila Talk — a personal passion for changing the world through social businesses, and how we at Hapinoy try to live this through the work that we do. Change, Inc : How Social Business Can Help Build A Better World View more documents from Mark Ruiz. »
Eradicating Poverty Conference
The MCPI (Microfinancing Council of the Philippines) had a regional conference on the theme Beyond Credit : A Holistic Approach to Poverty Eradication, and we at Hapinoy were invited to share our experience and perspective on the topic. The topic is actually quite interesting, especially since we founded MicroVentures/Hapinoy specifically on this insight : Given... »














