THE MIRIAM College-Henry Sy, Sr. Innovation Center is marking the celebration of its 8th anniversary on September 4 with the funding and incubation of five new startups under the program called “The Nursery” implemented by the Center’s Miriam College-Technical Business Incubation.

The Nursery, now on its sixth year of implementation, is a six-month incubation program that provides early-stage support for entrepreneurs who want to scale up their ventures. It provides capacity-building activities such as mentoring, networking, training on business development and legalization, as well as funding.

The five startups receiving funding have all developed a technology to scale up their ventures in the areas of food, fisheries, hydrophonics, tourism, and games & coding. They are Anitu Food Forest, REPEL:AquARDENT, CRATE: HydroSmarth, InnoVision, and The 5th C Board Game.

“We are so proud of how the Center has evolved the past eight years. We have come a long way–from being an alternative learning space for the Miriam College community to becoming a partner of the national government in their goal of supporting more technology-based startups, especially those that are women-led,” said Amb. Laura. Quiambao-Del Rosario, Miriam College President.

Inaugurated in 2016, MC-HSSIC was created to become an alternative learning space that nurtures students, faculty, and employees in 21st century skills. It highlights the use of design thinking, engineering, entrepreneurship, and innovation to teach them how to turn ideas into valuable products or services.

To expand its reach and contribute to nation-building, the Center has partnered with key government agencies, specifically the Department of Science and Technology-National Capital region and the DOST-Philippine Council for Industry, Energy and Emerging Technology, Research and Development to establish MC-TBI and provide an ecosystem of support in technology and innovation management.

As a women’s college, it tapped its own internal resources and took the lead in creating an inclusive, gender-focused incubation program in support of women-led social enterprises. To further strengthen its program, the Center has also partnered with organizations and companies with expertise in the areas of social enterprise development, innovation, startup acceleration and incubation, and research. These include USAID, Startup Village, Bayan Innovation Group, Development Academy of the Philippines, PhilDev, and private companies like Accenture, among others.

To date, the Center through MC-TBI, has funded 16 startups totaling P6.6-M and incubated 32 startups across four regions, including 15 women-led social enterprises under DOST’s Women Helping Women: Innovating Social Enterprises program.

As the Center continues to nurture new ventures annually through “The Nursery,” it is also conducting startup webinars, spearheading incubation summits, and training entrepreneurs to be resilient startup owners. Recently, its representatives have been training and sharing best practices with different universities and colleges on how to put up their own Business Technology Incubation programs.

For 2024 and onwards, the Center will help implement DOST’s “Innovation for Filipinos Working Distantly” program, also called iFWD PH. The program aims to help Overseas Filipino Workers who were repatriated or forced to come back home by providing them with opportunities to move forward by establishing technology-based enterprises.

“We are truly grateful for the support from all our partners—both government and private institutions. Because, with them, MC-HSSIC is able to extend its expertise to sectors that need it most—students, faculty, women, and OFWs. We are excited to incubate more technology-based startups and help them become a significant part of the country’s economic development” said Maria Cristina Ibañez, Innovation Resource Manager of MC-HSSIC.