First, watch this. Very informative and at the same time alarming.
For tech geeks, this information is basic. But I'm thinking about just anybody else who has a smartphone and posting their pictures online. You should know that your phone is producing geographical locations embedded on your pictures' metadata. This enables practically anyone who knows about this to track you down through the picture you posted.
Here's a guide on how to turn off your phone's location settings from ICanStalkU.com.
This year is probably one of our best, not only because of the new web applications and partnerships we've established, but most notably, we were given a chance to work with TV5 on several web projects they launched this year -- one of which is launched just recently - KapatidTV (http://kapatidtv.com).
We only have TV5 and Carlo Ople, their New Media Head to thank for for trusting us and giving us a chance to prove that even a small web development house can provide quality products and services. And working with their bunch of really cool new media staff is definitely an advantage.
(Warning: might be long and filled with gramatical errors :D -- I decided to just write this once and not bother with copy editing. Quick summary: I recently joined the Start-up Weekend Manila and the idea I pitched placed 5th over-all. Not bad!)
The story behind the idea
Last month, we had this message series at church entitled "Change Your World in 52 Days". Craig Groeschel asked "What breaks your heart?" and then challenged us -- "Somebody has got to do something. It might as well be me".
And so I asked myself, what breaks my heart? My answer: aside from seeing people far from God (my first on the list), it breaks my heart whenever I see kids who needs healthcare and are not getting any because of poverty.
TV stations like GMA and ABS-CBN have been so far successful in bringing these concerns to TV viewers. They will create program segments that features these kids and would ask you to donate and support their hospitalization.
If you really care, your heart is pounded. I would normally have that feeling -- I want to donate, I want it now! And so the TV programs will tell you where to deposit the money, the name of the child and assures you that your money will be able help the kid survive the predicament. And sure it will. So the next morning, you'll wake up, eat your breakfast and go back to work. You forgot about the heart-breaking segment you saw on TV last night. I don't blame myself, or anyone for that matter, who will have this routine. We're human beings. We forget. That's our nature. Our nature is the problem.
Somebody has got to do something. It might as well be me. There's a solution to this problem. And as a web entrepreneur, I can see a solution.
Imagine if you'll see this same program, same images, same story of a kid who needs healthcare -- the same intensity, the same emotion, the same willingness to help -- this time on a website while you're browsing, or checking your emails, or lurking at Facebook. You are presented with the opportunity to help the child right there and then -- not tomorrow in the bank -- right now, with your Paypal accounts and your credit cards. Assuming that you have the real desire to help, the possibility of you making that step has increased by a hundred fold. Multiply that with hundreds of possible donors, pitching in to help the child. I'm sure raising funds will be faster than just featuring his story on TV.
The idea: a web app that non-government organizations can use to facilitate online donations for kids that need healthcare.
When I was sharing this to my LifeGroup, my original plan is just to partner with a huge organization that works with children healthcare (like ABS-CBN Foundation, GMA Kapuso Foundation), offer my services in building this platform for free. I wasn't planning to earn anything out of it. Just the thought of having my skills gone to good use is a huge blessing and an accomplishment for me. I have in fact contacted a friend at a TV station to try to pitch this idea to him to see if his organization can support this partnership. But Start-up Weekend Manila happened sooner.
Start-up Weekend Manila's pitch
Start-up Weekend was finally coming to the Manila. (To know more about Start-Up Weekend Manila, click here). I know I'll join -- not for anything else but to just be immersed into the Pinoy geek community. The energy of multiple geeks and entrepreneurs in one room would definitely blow my mind. That's what I looked forward to. On the side, I was thinking about pitching an idea. A "cool" start up.
Unfortunately, I can't think of anything original. My other ideas have been implemented already either by my team or with others around. The only other idea that I have in mind is this one -- the non-profit web app for children's health care. So I thought, why not pitch this idea and see if this is viable.
However, if this will be pitched it needs to be profitable. So, I kinda modified the idea. Instead of just doing it for free to partner with one huge organization, I would be presenting it as a Software-As-A-Service, Social Entrepreneurship start-up that will provide free tools to multiple organizations that takes care of children's healthcare donations. The revenue stream will come from processing fees. Not bad, isn't it?
Friday night pitch fire
I pitched the idea. I was among the less than 70 ideas that stood and pitched for 1 minute. My goal is simple: no competition, just wanting to know how people will react to the idea. Is that something worth pursuing? Will people actually find it interesting?
I named this start up GroupHug.ph. As in, "come on, let's group together, hug this kid by pitching in our money for his hospitalization" group hug.
Wasn't expecting anything actually. When informal votation came, my piece of paper was average. Compare to that Voodoo App's popularity, mine was ... well.. :D
Team formation
But then, it made it to top 20! We were asked to form a team to work on a prototype over the weekend for presentation Sunday night. Some really passionate individuals approached me and interested to work on the project with me.
Meet Chris, Sam, John and Dayle. With the exception of John, everyone else I just met that night. We started rough and extreme. That's natural for people who do not know each other, with different goals and directions. My goal was simple -- I just want the idea to come out. Not to win or anything like that. But these dudes, they're on to something. They want to win. They so believe in the idea that they actually believe this will win the Singapore incubator gig! They're so passionate about winning that they got me to believe about the project's winnability, too! And I'm saying this on a positive note. Sometimes, you need people to believe in you to so you can believe in yourself.
They're not just about winning, they coupled the passion with hard work. I saw them worked their ass off over the weekend to be able to come up with a prototype.
Sunday night presentation
I've marveled as I listened to the presenters. Filipinos do have wonderful ideas. We have skills to match the ideas. Just being in the midst of that room with those really talented individuals makes me want to go home :D But, I still need to present what we have.
My presentation focused not just on the web app. It focused primarily on the benefit. And since this web app is primarily for a cause, my goal is to trigger the emotions of those that will be watching it. That's how GroupHug.ph differed from the rest -- it's not just about technology, it's technology with a heart.
People's reaction
Seeing how great the other apps were technologically, I already knew we're not going to be #1. But still, we'd be winners if my goal of confirming whether people can relate with the project or not, if the project is viable or not, will happen. And somehow, it happened.
After my presentation, several people came to me telling me how they loved the idea. It's the cause for children's healthcare that grabbed their attention and touched their hearts. An incubator gave me a card, interested to talk about GroupHug.ph further.
Some people Twitted:
@iamLadyVera: I used to think that I don't have a heart but GroupHug.ph just touched it.
@renzmarv : Hope to see GroupHug & Startup Mavericks to get live soon! Aside from ours, those two are my personal favorites! #swmanila @jasontorres
@dazedndconfused: #swmanila GROUPHUG very socially conscious app- " technology with heart"
jfdiasia: #swmanila GroupHug: web application facilitating donations for children's healthcare services
5th place finish
Hearing the people's reaction makes us winners already, seriously. That's the primary reason why I came here, to validate this idea. The icing on the cake being part of the top winners -- 5th to be exact.
So, what's next?
What's next for GroupHug.ph? Are we going to continue on with this? Quick answer: of course. Why not? The idea has been validated. People loved it. It will make a difference in the lives of children who needs healthcare. And quite honestly, it will also make a difference in the lives of people who will be given the chance to donate. Giving is always a blessing, it changes you more than it changes the recipient of your gift.
HOWEVER, the reality is, to launch this project requires a lot of time and energy. It's not a simple iPhone app that you upload on iTunes store. GroupHug.ph requires vision casting to non-profit organizations. The webapp itself, as I envision it, needs dedicated time to make it work. And I can't make my company, TeamSparrow be involved in this. We're really full at this point and a man-hour investment is something my team cannot provide. On top of that, I just launched a start up (in partnership with Abe of YugaTech and James, a long time client) called YugaDeals. And, together with my buddy Jerameel and Abe, we've started working on another cool, kick ass web app which we hope to launch by early 2012. Plus, I have another start up: LifeChurch Makati (which technically is a start up too). I can't have too many start ups all at the same time. I need to do outsourced work to feed my family. LOL! :D
BUT, this thing is real. And it needs to happen. Maybe, if I'm going to run this from the leadership capacity without involving my current company and with an incubator or VC supporting it, maybe things will be much easier and it'll fly as it should. So, GroupHug.ph is on the fridge right now as I try to follow up on those incubators and possible VCs and partners.
Start-up Weekend is both a fun and a challenge
I have learned a lot from this experience. I honestly have some reservations, but overall, the Start-up Weekend is what the Philippines need to promote entrepreneurship and technology in the country. We have really great minds locally. These people don't need to go abroad to work. Work is here.
It was a holiday but I'm working on a pet project. During break, these videos kept me company. I know, with the recent Steve Jobs resignation at Apple, he is on top of the searches now a days. These were educational for most and inspiring to some (including myself) to see 2 giants in our industry in one stage having fun and discussing the past and the future of technology. Very rare occasion indeed.
Most people never succeed because they give up too soon. Is there a dream you’ve always had that you’ve given up on? ... Great people are simply ordinary people with an extraordinary amount of determination. Successful people just don’t know how to quit.
Abraham Lincoln was probably America’s greatest president. He lost more times than he won. If you ask any school kid who Abraham Lincoln is, you’ll hear plenty of answers. You won’t hear anything about his defeats, his failures, his lost elections or his embarrassing rejections. You just hear about the Emancipation Proclamation and the Gettysburg Address, and that he saved the Union.
If you are an Apple fanboy (like me) and you woke up today with the news that Apple rockstar and visionary Steve Jobs has resigned his post as CEO of the company, I know you're disheartened (err.. like me).
Jobs has revolutionized the way we see tech gadgets. He's a charismatic leader, a visionary. If he'll ask all Apple fanboys to jump off the cliff so he'll tell them the next big gadget, everyone will follow.
I'm exaggerating, of course, but looking at how Apple gained grounds in the last decades because of his leadership, I think that description is not far from the reality.
He has resigned, the Apple community is disheartened, and Apple stocks are down by 5% today. Who knows how further the stocks will react to this news in the next couple of days more.
My thoughts on his resignation from where I'm coming from as an entrepreneur and an "idiotes" leader of an organization:
1. While Jobs has made Apple strong almost single handedly, all organizations will have to come to reality that everyone has an "expiration date". No leader can lead forever. And to build an organization around a leader might be a mistake that can be felt when the leader leaves the organization. This is
2. This is my case for personality-driven leadership vs. vision-driven leadership. In my opinion, an organization that has built their organization around a strong vision and mission can better withstand the time and storm of its life.
3. I think Steve Jobs is a great leader. And as a great leader, his leadership can be further acknowledged on how he has positioned others to succeed, how he has driven a vision for his company and how the community and members of the organization will respond to the vision and not with the person.
Every once in a while, we're able to work on some exciting, not your typical website/webapp project. Let's call this my "Projects I'm proud of" list.
Just recently, TV5 approached us to work on an ambitious project. It is unique, in a sense that I I have never seen anything like that done in the past. The concept is simple but the technology behind it is not.
TV5 is about to launch a new tv show hosted by Aga Muhlach. Pinoy Explorer, as I heard, brings Aga to different places. And to hype up this show, they launched a site called NasaanSiAga.com. The concept: people will guess Aga's first destination (hence, "NasaanSiAga?"). They will tweet their answers together with the hashtag #nasaansiaga. But that's not all. While people are tweeting, the website collates the Twitter thumbnails of those who participated in, transforms it into photo mosaic on top of a portion of the flag where Aga is actually going to. As the number of tweets goes closer to 10,000, the flag is revealed little by little. All happening on-the-fly. Sort of (we update it every 10 minutes).
As of writing, the flag is on 14.1%. And with all those Twitter thumbnails photo-mosiac'ed, man -- what a beautiful sight.
I'm not sure if I'm ok to reveal the technology behind this. Not while it is running, I guess. But definitely, no Flash technology involved. All heavy weight PHP, Linux, cron jobs and Twitter API programming.
Carlo Ople, TV5's new media head, calls this "mission: impossible". I'd say, it probably is. Before the cool dudes at TV5 and TeamSparrow pulled this thing off ;)
Coach: I prayed so hard, but I still can’t seem to win.
Mr. Bridges: I heard of a story of two farmers praying to God for rain to come. Both prayed but only one prepared the land. Who do you think trusted God more to send the rain?
Times are tough. And in times like these, knowledge is your best friend. We've got to know how to get through the hoops.
I've been invited to attend the "Steps to Financial Peace" seminar this coming Friday, August 12, 2011. With life and personal finance coach Randell Tiongson (with popular leadership coach Francis Kong as guest, among others) downloading all these knowledge to attendees, I'm sure this whole day teaching will be a great time to be equipped with necessary tools to financial management.
