By Kelvin Lester K. Lee, The Manila Times
LAST March 20, I had the honor of sharing the financial literacy initiatives of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) with the youth, when I served as a mentor and judge to aspiring entrepreneurs from teams of senior high school students from the National Capital Region and Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon or Region 4-A) for the DiskarTechpreneur Program led by the Rizal Commercial Banking Corp.
The DiskarTechpreneur Program is a financial literacy boot camp and business case competition that aims to forward financial literacy and expose the participants to the rigors of running a business.
On this venture, I was joined by business and financing experts, in the persons of Department of Trade and Industry Assistant Secretary Jean Pacheco, Hapinoy President Mark Ruiz, US Agency for International Development Project Management specialist Tess Espenilla, and ANC and DZMM news anchor Salve Duplito.
The competition challenged students to propose business ideas and practices alongside products or services, which will then be offered and sold through digital media platform Kumu. Finalists will be judged based on their sales numbers and the quality of their product or service.
As mentor, I selected four teams with the most promising business ideas and practices, and gave them advice and feedback from my years of corporate practice.
During the interview, I shared my vision that young Filipinos have the potential to further the country’s prosperity through their curiosity and innovation. The young ones look at the world differently, which is key to solving the modern problems we have today.
The RCBC DiskarTechpreneur Program’s objectives run parallel to the SEC’s advocacy to promote financial literacy and education among the general public.
In the past years, the commission has intensified its efforts through the SEC Communication, Advocacy and Network, or SEC CAN!, where it partners with both public and private organizations to spread the message of financial literacy and investor education.
In fact, our approach at the commission is that we make every effort to keep an open mind to allow innovations to flourish, without losing sight of our mandate to protect the investing public and secure our corporate and capital market sector.
To know more about the big ideas coming from these young entrepreneurs, here are some of the products and services that they came up with.
Kinaiya is an online business pioneered by Grade 12 accountancy, business and management (ABM) students from Malabon National High School. It offers carefully curated boxes, meant for self-expression and self-reflection to younger (and young-at-heart) generations. The team will be opening their “boxes” soon, especially with the tagline, “With Kinaiya, you have Kasama.”
Wisteria Inc. is a school-based perfume company composed of four Grade 11 science, technology, engineering and mathematics students, and one Grade 11 ABM student. Wisteria aims to help people by boosting their confidence with world-class products that won’t only make them smell good but also feel good about themselves. Wisteria stands for “We Improve Socialization To others and Enhance our Rare Imperfections Accurately.”
Kelvin Lester K. Lee is a commissioner of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The views and opinions stated herein are his own. You may email your comments and questions to [email protected].
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