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July 06, 2015 meeting Reflection

What I liked most:

            July 06, 2015 meeting was supposed to be a presentation of technopreneurship Ideas for the upcoming Ideaspace. We had our ideas printed, unfortunately we haven’t prepared any powerpoint presentation so our facilitator decided to give us a lecture all about technopreneurship. And that was awesome, cause if we had really proceeded with the presentation we will all going to be screwed because we haven’t prepared any presentation as we didn’t know we have to have one. So, that’s why I liked it so much that we didn’t have to present and instead we will be having a lecture. Well, I am very much glad and happy it went out that way. I really liked the topic. The discussion was very helpful to us in terms of having a full understanding on what is technopreneurship is all about. Then the facilitator prepared the presentation for the lecture. I am guessing he was really expecting that it would turn out that way. He was very prepared for his presentation. So then, he proceeded with the powerpoint presentation, the first slide consisted of 6 pictures. In that slide we have seen pictures of a jobless person, a person with ugly face and people who does actions against the government. The one with the ugly girl with her black and dirty teeth exposed,

which seemed to be damaged, a dirty skin and a very bad makeup and hairstyle which is I think was gay. With a horrific smiling face. Then our facilitator asked our opinions unto what was on the pictures. There were 2 pictures showing people on a rally. I think that means scarcity of jobs in the country. Then our facilitator had explained what the pictures meant or represents. It says that the picture with people on a rally means many graduate students that are jobless and don’t even have the many opportunity to get a job because of how the government of the Philippines haven’t done anything for utilizing our human resources. He then shared that he hates information technology graduate students from the University of Southeastern Philippines to work on BPO’s especially if they are Call Center agents there.  Company and he said that there are some graduate students that really work in that kind of company and that made him feel down. His reason, was that we were not meant to be on those type of jobs. It doesn’t fit us as we are IT people and we should be designated to the jobs that fits us, which fits our Bachelor’s degree. And I do agree with him with this. I am not saying it’s wrong to work on BPO’s, well, he also quoted that it’s okay to work there if we are network admins or if we are assigned to IT departments, not call center agents. For him, it’s not worthy, our years of sacrifice, hardships, and the stuffs that we learned and we just end up receiving calls. He wants us to aim higher, work on companies that would put our skills and our degree in use. For him it’s a shame to work on that area. It puts our degree, our years of study to shame if we just work as call center agents. Yes, I do agree with him. It really sucks to hear that most IT graduates and some under graduates end up working as call center agents to some of the BPO companies in the city. It’s not that I hate the job. It’s just it doesn’t fit us well to work on that field. That we are depriving ourselves of using what we have studied, that we are just wasting what we studied, what we went to school. It’s like putting our degree to trash as for the reason it doesn’t really need to be on a Bachelor’s degree to be able to work on that field. For our facilitator, we are over qualified to work on that are. And I do agree with him with this. It’s like we are putting shame on our degree. But sad to think that, in reality life’s hard. Life’s tough, and you got to be tougher. I knew lots of people who had degrees that end up working on BPO’s. Well of course, pride cannot feed you and your family. Ego won’t give you the money to buy your needs, your wants. This is the very reason why most people who had college degrees end up working as call center agents. Yes, being a call center agent is hard, but it pays well. So, most people just stick to it. This is also what I noticed, as I know lots of people who ended up that way. Especially people who have Bachelor’s degree in IT and CS. Working on IT companies is tough. I have experienced it when I had my OJT 2. The pressure of working with codes, the pressure being versatile in terms of programming languages. You have to keep learning new things every day. A programmer’s life is so stressful, and it doesn’t pay that much especially if you are just starting and more over if you are not good. Most programmers I know who have good salaries are exceptionally good at programming. So I can understand why some just switched to be a call center agent, yes, it’s still stressful. But it’s a routine work, so you don’t have to bother solving problems, coming up with good solutions or algorithms from time to time, you don’t have to keep learning new languages or to keep studying programming stuffs. And most of all it pays better even if you are just a novice or an irregular employee or a contractual employee. This really made me think about my future, especially after I had my OJT2. I experienced what it’s like to work in the industry. I have accessed myself. I know my limitations. If I work on the industry, chances are I am going to have a stressful environment, life and with my programming skills, I cannot really make that much money. So I have decided for myself, as much as possible I would like to be self-employed. I want to have my own company. I want to have my own business. But to do this, I’m going to need money for capital, so still I cannot escape the fact that I still need to work before I can put up my own business or company. So, last year I decided to find a job. For quite some time I struggled. Found some job but were really low paying jobs. Not even enough for me to start keeping money for my future business. Luckily I found a job online. My employer was from Switzerland, it pays better, but for me it’s still not enough for me to be able to start saving for my business. I really wanted to do trading or merchandising and also start my own web solutions company. But as we all know all journey start from a step, from humble beginnings so I put into my mind that this was it, this is my humble beginning. Our facilitator was really a huge influence to me. Technopreneurship was a huge help to me. This is my second time with this subject but I am not frustrated at all. I failed my first stake as it was because I didn’t put that much effort. But I really did learned a lot. And I thank my facilitator for that, he really did guided me to have the mindset I have today. The stuffs I learned on my first take of Techno1 was really helpful to me, especially for me to be able to get my online job. The job description was it to be tech savvy, open-minded, willing to learn new stuffs, luckily no experience was really needed. So I applied, my employer had an interest on my resume. So he decided to put me on an interview. I was shocked, for me that was quick. I wasn’t prepared at all. He then gave an idea what my job will be about. The job description was a Virtual Assistant but will be a social media marketer. So I need to market my employer’s products on facebook, chatting to people from different countries. So he gave me 15 minutes to prepare. Lucky for me, I already participated Ideaspace. I was able to pitch during the Regional level. Elevator pitch really helped me well. I got the job, I learned the craft fast. As I was working with my boss, I had this mindset already, “I don’t wanna work for someone else for the rest of my life.” So I began studying how my boss does the business, I started learning myself how he runs his online business. Within just 4 months, I learned the craft and started to do the business on my own. If I hadn’t had this mindset, I won’t be able to come up with my own online business and I won’t be able to earn the money I never thought I could have earned in just a short period of time. So I think, what our facilitator Randy Gamboa is trying to implant to our minds is really a great thing for us. I think we should all have the mindset of being the employer instead of becoming employees. Not that we can work on ourselves, having our own time, earning the money without limits but also we can be of help to some people as we will be creating more jobs to them. Even if this was my second time taking up the subject, I still like listening to our facilitator’s lectures about technopreneurship and about mindset. I totally agree with what our facilitator keeps lecturing about the old mindset and what should be changed.

            Getting back to the pictures that was shown, there were also pictures showing ugly looking people. Which then our facilitator that one problem people face, especially those who have difficulty looking for jobs is that most companies are looking for people with pleasing personality. It means that most companies do not hire ugly looking people. Which I guess is true, I mean most company has requirements when they hire people saying, “With pleasing personality”. You cannot be that pleasing if you are ugly, so I totally agree with that. And this also causes problems to employment rates. So keeping the right mindset is really important. More people are being employees and aspiring employees and there are only few companies that are hiring. This is one of the major reasons why we have unemployment rate. So if all of us in our class has the mindset to be future employers, there will be plenty of jobs for everyone and for me, working on your own is better. Also, our facilitator pointed out that because of this wrong mindset we are having brain drain on our city, and our country. We are losing our excellent graduates as they are finding jobs abroad. And this is slowing down progress on our country, our city. If only our excellent graduates put up their own companies, they can be of great help to our city and our country. But unfortunately the life that they can have there, outside is way better than what will they be having here. The city cannot even offer good employment opportunities for them that’s why most of our excellent graduates are grabbing better opportunities outside.

            But the good thing is that was on the past only. Now the country and the city itself offers good opportunities for IT graduates. As there are quite a lot of companies already in our city. And this is really good. Our facilitator also showed us some of the local companies in the country even the IT companies in the city which are some were founded by our alumni. This is really great and very nice to know.

Then we also had a lecture about the SEED Model. Which means:

Self-mastery 
            Environment-mastery
            Enterprise-mastery
            Development of business plan

Self-Mastery means knowing one’s self. This means knowing your own limitations, acknowledging your own strengths and weaknesses. A self-mastered does not need high IQ however they have high EQ and AQ, according to our facilitator’s lecture. You can also use it in your daily life especially when you want to venture into business. You will know what you like to do so you will also have an idea what product you want to sell. And, thus having self-mastery would be helpful for everyone. Personally people who knows themselves well are those people that are successful. Knowing one’s self is very important. You won’t be able to plan well or efficiently work on something if you don’t know what you are capable of and what you are not. Not knowing your limitations may put your plans and goals at stake of failure. Environment Mastery, this is Generating business ideas and seeking opportunities out from his or her environment through. This is really important. As you cannot really come up with a good idea about something if you are not really a master in that area. Mastering your area or environment means widening your scope and limitation for thinking. Also you cannot formulate great solutions to your problems if you are not really a master in that area. If you are an environment mastered person, then you have to be updated on your area. You keep thinking of better ideas for your area. Then there is Enterprise Mastery. An enterprise-mastered person understands and integrates the functions of management such as marketing, human resource, operations, and finance. If you are an enterprise-mastered person you should know how to handle the organization of an enterprise. You should have an idea how the departments function and their processes. In doing so you won’t be naïve as to how things are getting done in the different departments in the enterprise. You should be able to understand and always keep things noted. The enterprise-mastered person also understands and integrates the process of management like planning, organizing, directing, and controlling. You should know the processes of management so that there will be standards and right process of the work. If you know these processes then everything will be organized accordingly. You won’t have a hard time tracing the source of the problems if anything pops up. Know what to do and what to apply in a specific situation so that you won’t have a hard time working on things. The enterprise-mastered person leads and inspires rather than manage. They lead their people and uplift them into doing more. They help their people to work efficiently at the same time they are working with their people. They show their humility and help others. And lastly, Development of Business Plan. This is very basic, as every business needs a good business plan for it to work and run smoothly. The Business plan covers writing the business plan, presenting and depending the business plan and adding refinements to the presented business plan. Of course you should have an idea how a business plan works. In writing a business plan you should mark the things that you think will be part of your product. Everything that you will associate with your product should be included especially the financial information. You should be able to present your business plan well and include every information that will be very essential to your business. This is my first time knowing about the SEED curriculum and what are the meaning and significance of it. Although I already had the mindset. And I think it really inspired a lot of us. I hope that a lot of us will really become employers instead of employees. I am really aiming at it. I wanna keep my mindset and achieve my future goals.

What I liked least:

What I liked the least? I think it was the fact that the pressure on Ideaspace is upon all of us. Our facilitator keeps reminding us of what is the USEP – IC’s legacy on smart sweep, Ideaspace competition and for me, it’s really a huge pressure for us. I am concerned that our ideas are not good enough for us to be able to win it. Also, the deadline is nearing already and we still haven’t finalized on choosing what we will submit for the competition. Also, the fact that only a small number of graduates have started their own business and company really frustrates me. Well, life’s hard and people need to be practical, so maybe that’s the reason. There’s really no need to be picky what’s important is that we earn money. Next thing I didn’t liked that much were the pictures that were shown. The reality that our country is facing huge unemployment problems. That one of the reason is that we are having brain drain and there are more employees that the employers cannot accommodate any longer. Also the sad reality that sometimes companies or employers are categorizing people because of their looks. Then, our facilitator had also shared about HELF and all of my classmates including myself laugh at this sharing and our facilitator had to explain what the meaning of this word is. Our facilitator said that in order to achieve a successful startup, any individual should remember HELF. HELF in Technopreneurship stands for H- Human Resources, E- Environment, L- Laws and Policies, F- Financial Resources, these are necessary for a Technopreneurship business venture. A venture would not be successful if any of the four mentioned above is lacking, because each has a role to play in the Technopreneurship ecosystem and to the road of success. So let us start with H which stands for Human Resources, in any venture there should be a researcher, anyone who is responsible for innovating new ideas, developer, anyone who is responsible for implementing new innovations, financers and marketing people now these are the necessary human resources you’ll need in your venture. Without these people it will be hard for your Technopreneurship venture to be a success. Then, the next is the letter “E” that stands for Environment, this is one of the important parts of HELF and this is also the basic part of building or starting your own business. If someone will start a Technopreneurship venture he or she should have the proper environment for the venture for example incubation hubs that some companies offer for any individual who wants to build their own company. Then, the next letter would be “L” or stands for Laws and Policies, in business society there should always be a license to process in order to have a good and effective transaction towards customers and other companies, also having license will give you more effects and good result like government branch that checks company products if a certain company had acquired a permit to sell products that came from that certain business building. There are lots of licenses in order to have a business and for the good of your company you must have to get all the requirements and licenses in having a peaceful business transaction and it is important so that your customers buying will not be interrupted with the service. Last but not the least; letter “F” that stands for Financial Resources, this component is important because you will need money for your venture of course. You need to find funding agencies that will support your Technopreneurship venture so that it will be successful. As mentioned in my previous reflections, our facilitator reminds us that Technopreneurship is important, because one good reason is that Technopreneurship generates more jobs. This means that if there were more Technopreneurship and more start-up business ventures then the unemployment rate of the country would lower and another positive effect of this is that the economy of the country would improve. In my own opinion, this is one of the greatest benefits the country can have if start-up businesses were more abundant in the country. For other instances I heard my facilitator shared something about organizations that help staff and professors from our institute to train in other countries to gain more knowledge about technology and regarding to Information Technology and Computer Science courses and this also will help our instructor to widen their knowledge about the fast growing technology throughout the world. Then another thing, talking about business models and business plans, never really excite me that much, so the discussion about HELF and business plan making never really excite me. It was one of the reason I failed the technopreneurship subject for the first time. Well, I guess this time, I have to love doing it.

The incubation topic was really interesting and all the stuff about what was smart doing and how can we benefit specially by joining the smart sweep and ideaspace. Yes, it was awesome and cool for smart to do it. But it didn’t really peaked my interest. Maybe because the fact that, I am thinking if ever I will have the next big idea to win the competition I cannot be able to develop it and make the idea into really something. I am afraid I am not that skilled enough to finish my idea and make it nit just an idea but a really working technology or innovation. Also, it disappoints me knowing that there is really no good incubation in the city. And that we have the “Jurassic facilities”, it is nice to know that we will be having our own building soon. But, for me it took so long for them to do that and our batch won’t be able to enjoy the facilities. It was also interesting to know that there are lots of companies in Davao Cities owned by our facilitator’s friends and some that are owned by our alumni. But sad thing is, I’m not really interested in them anymore. After I had my OJT2 I lost interest to work for companies. I hate working in that kind of environment. I think I will really not be happy working there. Though there are lots of my classmates who had their interests, it doesn’t really bother me that much. Well for me, it’s not talent, its desire. If you want it you will get it. It’s all about your mindset. It’s all about doing what you love.

Although Sir Randy Gamboa taught us to dream high and to keep our dreams alive, I think it contradicts on the SEED curriculum on E Environment mastery. I think environment mastery also covers knowing one’s limitation, knowing your weakness. Not only knowing what you are capable of and that you are good at but also knowing that you cannot also do something. For me, knowing yourself limitations also limits your dreams. Sometimes people limit their dreams, their goals as they have doubt on their selves. As they know what they are not capable of doing. I think, I am one of those people. But even if I had that in mind, it doesn’t remove the fact that I have the mindset to be an employer someday. I am not contented as an employee. I am aiming to own a company and having my own business. I want to be self-employed. This is the confusing part for me. We are encouraged to not limit ourselves, our goals but we are also reminded that we should know our limitations. I didn’t really liked it. For me those are 2 contradicting ideas. We should not limit ourselves in constructing different kinds of ideas and be open minded on everything; thinking the advantages and disadvantages of doing such things. To go beyond our boundaries and explore new ideas that could help us in producing innovative ideas soon. We should expand our capacity to think. I know that our facilitator only wanted us to take those opportunities that will surely help us and lead to us to a better future. He didn’t want us to get robbed of better opportunities that’s why he is doing his best to keep us on those opportunities. But it doesn’t really peaked my interest that much yet. One last thing, I thought that we will be given some tips on how to do the elevator pitch, but we weren’t given yet so that disappointed me a little. But overall, the meeting went great. We had learned a lot from the lecture and the sharing our facilitator had. There are lots of things that peaked my interests and really excite me. I learned a lot during that day. But there are also some not so interesting topics discussed. Although I know those were all interesting and really good topics but not all topics and sharing had really peaked my interest.