As a way of celebrating their 25th year anniversary, Sanitary Care Products Asia (SCPA) decided to invest in local startups to champion decades of people-first philosophy. In collaboration with the Asian Institute of Management-Dado Banatao Incubator (AIM-DBI), SCPA launched the social accelerator program dubbed as the Human Investment x Impact Grant for Entrepreneurship and Empowerment (HIIGENE) Program.
Crafted according to the Sio Family’s initiative to support local entrepreneurs infused with human investment in its business genes, the HIIGENE Program blazed the trail as the very first collaboration between a local company and a business incubator. SCPA aspires to help build an industry of people-first enterprises, boost the economy, and improve the lives of many through innovation.
Eleven (11) qualified startups from the AIM-DBI pool went through a rigorous selection process led by SCPA executives, members of the academe, and the corporate industry. Each startup presented their innovations, purpose, and their future plans through a pitch presentation until they were trimmed down into five (05) finalists — such a challenging task for the selection committee headed by SCPA Chairman and Founder Renato Sio together with SCPA President and CEO Ven Sio.
During the online awarding ceremony last 24 June 2021, not just one by three startups were named as grantees of the SCPA HIIGENE Program: Payruler, Eskwelabs, and Mayani.
Each of the startups will receive equity-free cash grants of up to PHP500,000 to help them expand and sustain their operations. They will also be participating in a six-session mentorship program under the HIIGENE curriculum with SCPA executives from July to September this year. The HIIGENE curriculum features enrichment topics based on real-life experiences such as establishing the business purpose, strategies, operations, finance, sales and marketing, and people management to inspire their organization’s practices. To top it all off, SCPA decided to provide mentorship to all startups who participated in the elimination round.
AIM-DBI will provide updates on the progress and achievements of the winners through their milestone monitoring program. Outputs will be presented at the culmination of SCPA’s silver anniversary celebration come October 2021.
Payruler
Payruler, a comprehensive and customizable Human Resource Management System built for Philippine businesses, has been in service since 2015. As an end-to-end solution, Payruler automates, integrates, and streamlines HR processes covering the entire employee lifecycle from hiring to retiring.
Originally, Payruler is made up of six (6) major modules that enable process automation in recruitment, employee information management, timekeeping, payroll, reports generation, and employee self-service. In keeping with the times brought by COVID-19, it has been necessary to be able to not just manage, but also upskill in different working environments; thus, Payruler has integrated a seventh major module fully dedicated to learning management.
Eskwelabs
Founded in 2019, Eskwelabs is a Manila-based online data upskilling school with the mission of driving social mobility in the future of work through data skills education. The startup has reached 4,000 learners of which 10% graduated from paid programs and is also working with companies like BPOs to upskill call center agents towards data-enabled roles.
Mayani
Mayani currently is the Philippines’ fastest-growing, impact-driven, agri-technology platform that connects rural smallholder farmers and consumers, both retail and commercial. Established in May 2019, the startup envisions the Philippines where over 10 million smallholder farmers lead better lives through technology.