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 from the startup of the year, there were other awards given out :

* News Story of the Year went to Smartmatic-TIM undertaking the computerization of the 2010 Elections
* IT Product of the Year was given to Windows 7.
* IT Executive of the Year went to Ricky Banaag, Country Head of Intel Philippines.
* Company of the Year went to Acer
* A special lifetime award was also given to Bill Torres who started the Internet Service Provider Mozcom and is fondly referred to as ‘the Father of the Philippine Internet’.

It was definitely an awesome honor for Inovent, especially given the fact that we truly are a startup — composed of a ragtag team of youthful and vibrant designers, engineers, and believers who didn’t even have an office when we were starting. Because of these humble beginnings,  the Beta prototype of the Ilumina was actually built in the condo unit of our student-engineer! :p

Here’s looking to 2010 and beyond as we see how the succeeding chapters of our startup story evolves …

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Inovent got invited to the Red Dot Design Concept Awards last November 25 in Singapore’s Red Dot Museum, and so Chief Inoventor Brian Quebengco, Design Inoventor, and I went to check it out and get ourselves immersed in award-winning concepts. Below are the highlights from our journey :

Standing outside the Red Dot Museum

Standing outside the Red Dot Museum

Upon entering the main awards area, the venue exuded a hip-cool envelop that captured the spirit of Red Dot.

We got prime seats right near the front! In picture is myself with Brian.

Ken Koo – President-Asia Red Dot Awards

Peter Zec – Founder, Red Dot Awards

Winners would walk through the runway …

… to receive their awards

Singaporean performance artist/musician Sonicbrat provided ambiance and mood in between awardings.

Below are some of the cool concepts i particularly liked :

The Red Dot Luminary is the best-of-the-best-of-the-best Award.

“And the Luminary goes to Sirius Breast Cancer.”

I really hope that this concept gets commercialized as it can potentially help so many people.

Brian and Jonas looking forward to come back next year … hopefully to receive awards!

All of the pictures (and a boatload of other design concepts) here :

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Now, this is an audience i’m particularly interested in talking to.

So aside from Ryan, Nikko, and myself sharing the Ilumina (Brian was in the US), I also took the opportunity to share life from a Filipino tech start-ups’ point-of-view, as well as a point-of-view of having engineering at the forefront of national development.

Here’s our presentation :

While the general sentiment is really to let go of manufacturing and put all efforts into building service industries, my point-of-view is slightly evolving.

Of course, while a large chunk of this is due to the Ilumina; it’s also validated by some thinking that I’ve come across. In particular, there’s Thomas Friedman’s post on Invent, Invent, Invent; Jeffrey Immelt’s speech at the Detroit Economic club – pushing for big business in America to crank up the industrial machines again; As well as developing markets’ forays into it – India’s Tata Nano and Africa’s Maker Faire. )Special thanks to Emeka Okafor as his posts got me to thinking on this topic in depth)

It’s time for our country to Make – or Break!

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1st interactive TV proudly Pinoy-made
By Rainier Allan Ronda (The Philippine Star) Updated June 14, 2009 12:00 AM

MANILA, Philippines – A group of young Filipino engineers and designers bidding to make the world’s first interactive television unveiled the improved prototype of their dream computer-TV the other day.

Brian Quebengco, founder of Inovent Electronics Inc., launched the “beta” version of their Illumina LCD Interactive Television (iTV).

Quebengco presented a 32-inch LCD television enhanced with the functions of a personal computer with interactive Internet capability.

With their production of the beta unit, Quebengco said they are coming close to finishing a final prototype that will be mass-produced in the country and sent on a path toward attempting to be the first Filipino electronic product that can challenge the consumer market dominated by products from Japan, South Korea and the United States.

Calling themselves as “inoventors,” Quebengco said their group is attempting to merge the regular LCD TV and personal computer.

He said their group is now in talks with various manufacturers interested in mass-producing the Illumina.

According to Quebengco, they have already signed non-disclosure agreements with the US’ leading chip maker Intel, and local electronics companies Integrated Microelectronics Inc. (IMI) of the Ayala group and EMS Inc. to discuss possible mass production.

The Inovent Electronics team is composed of Quebengco as its founder and leader; chief marketing “inoventor” Mark Ruiz; senior design “inoventors” Peter Can, Jonas Peralta, and Jaed del Mundo; junior program “inoventor” Ryan Bitanga; and junior “inoventors” Victor Yu and Nikko Garcia, who are undergraduates at the De La Salle University (DLSU) taking up electrical engineering and electronics and communications engineering (ECE), respectively.

Quebengco is a professor of industrial design at the DLSU, aside from being an entrepreneur.

The group had produced the Illumina literally from scratch in the garage and different dorm units of the team members.

The Inovent team had presented an “alpha” unit or rough prototype of the Illumina last Nov. 30.

“We have made it sexier,” Ruiz said in the presentation yesterday at the Magnet Café in Bonifacio High Street mall at the Bonifacio Global City in Taguig City.

The Illumina boasts of a complete multimedia device with access to Google Gadgets, Plasma Widgets, and Mac OS X dock Widgets.

It is said to be the first convergence product made in the Philippines that synthesizes the functions of an LCD television and a personal computer.

Housed in a bold and minimalist curved casing, the iTV is equipped with a High Definition (HD) webcam, a Blue Ray DVD slot drive, VoIP, DVR, Wi-Fi/LAN, 1.5 Terabyte hard drive, wireless keyboard, and a Bluetooth head phone built in the back of the remote control to allow motion gesture base.

The iTV allows the user to watch a local or cable show while browsing the Internet and even communicate interactively through voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) and webcam.

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Interview by Tech Reporter TJ Manotoc at the Inovent “Garage”

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Part 2 :

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