Philippine team wins HSBC award

HONG KONG – Environment-friendly coffee cups and food boxes made from corn cobs and rice stalks produced by small-scale farmers won for a team of young Philippine entrepreneurs the “Best of the Best Award” at the 2011 Young Entrepreneur Awards (YEA) Regional Finals of the HSBC last Monday here.

This was the second time that the Philippines won the YEA award, the first being in 2009.

The winning Philippine team – Sing Terns – is composed of Czaesar Emil Callo of the University of the Philippines, and Mary Kathleen Chan and Eduard Edwynne Capacio, both of the Ateneo de Manila University.

The Philippine team’s project called “ECOntainer” bested the entries of six other teams from Bangladesh, Brunei, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Shanghai (China), and Thailand.

For bagging the Best of the Best Award, the team earned 100,000 Hong Kong dollars from the HSBC business development fund to help them implement their winning business plan.

Started in 2000 by HSBC, the YEA program “aims to inspire young people’s interest in entrepreneurship.”

The contest requires competing teams to develop an innovative idea that is creative and viable as a commercial venture. –MALOU E. ROSAL, Manila Bulletin