Filipinos win HSBC award

Two Filipino university students won the Best of the Best award and a Business Development Fund of HK$100,000 in the regional competition for the HSBC Young Entrepreneur Awards 2008-2009.

Timothy Huelva and Karl Satinitigan of Ateneo de Manila University won the top honor in the annual competition for creating an all-natural food disposal container made from coconut spathes. Areka! Leaf Plate is an eco-iconic project that is a useful alternative to plastic and Styrofoam containers.

The team from the Chinese University of Hong Kong was the first runner-up and won the Diamond Award with NuBurger, which was made by using alginate to replace the traditional burger’s fat content.

More than 2,400 university students from six Asian countries and territories—including the Philippines, Thailand, Brunei, Bangladesh, Malaysia and host Hong Kong—formed 902 teams and took part in local competitions. The gold award team from each area made a formal business plan presentation to judges at HSBC’s Asia-Pacific headquarters in the regional final.

Sandy Flockhart, chief executive of The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corp. Limited, says the HSBC Young Entrepreneur Awards program demonstrates the bank’s ongoing commitment to education and its investment in nurturing future leaders in the region.

“Since its inception, the program has attracted more than 16,000 students comprising some 6,300 teams around Asia. In addition to promoting entrepreneurship, the competition provides students the opportunity to acquire practical knowledge such as business planning and presentation skills,” Flockhart says.

The HSBC Young Entrepreneur Awards aims to encourage undergraduate students to develop innovative and commercially viable business plans. Since the first awards in Hong Kong in 2000, the program has been launched in Bangladesh, Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand.

Every year, HSBC invites eminent business leaders to judge the competition. This year’s panel, chaired by Flockhart, included Laura Cha, deputy chairman of The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corp. Limited; Po Chung, co-founder and chairman emeritus Asia Pacific, DHL Express (Hong Kong) Ltd.; Allen Fung, managing director and partner, McKinsey and Company Hong Kong; and Frank Slevin, managing director, head of global banking, HSBC Asia-Pacific. –Dinna Chan Vasquez, Manila Standard Today