What do you associate an incubator with? Depending on one’s interest will probably be how you define an incubator. If you are in the medical field or anything closely associated with it, an incubator is a machine that provides a controlled environment for the care and protection of any living organism that is premature, such as a baby not fully developed that has been birthed. Perhaps this imagery is the most common understanding for most.

However, with the advent of start-ups looking for a leg up in resources in terms of funding and advice to follow through on an idea; and venture capitalists seeking the next best idea that could prove to be a blockbuster returning 100 times or even more when brought to the public domain, incubators are viewed in a different light.

Incubators come in different forms to serve the diverse needs of budding entrepreneurs. And what are some of these? There is the low maintenance virtual business incubator. With the advent of wider bandwidth and varied computing devices, for receiving advice and doing pitches, a critical lifeline, particularly during the covid pandemic, for a budding entrepreneur or an SME wishing to expand, or even a large business seeking to diversify in a non-allied business, need no longer be physically present, a virtual incubator will eliminate the need for start-up support costs, keeping capex requirements to a minimum.

Then you have the public and social incubator which focuses on the public good and social needs particularly of the marginalized, cash-strapped but ideas-rich, underprivileged members of our society.

The Rotary Club of Makati and Makati Rotary Club Foundation, in tandem with the Hechanova family, launched a project along this line about a year ago with the completion of The Paing Hechanova Creativity Center, a three-story annex to our clubhouse, as a tribute to our club’s esteemed member, the late Rafael Hechanova. The Hatch Project was conceived for the Creativity Center to become a venue, without any cost to the users, for budding but needy entrepreneurs where the most interesting and promising projects are provided advice and cash prizes to further fuel their journey.

The Hatch Project was followed up by the Hatch + Program, Start-Up Village, in partnership with AIM Entrepreneurship Professor and SUV Founder Jay Bernardo and start-up expert SUV President Carlo Calimon to provide, at no cost to participants, an immersive and hands-on learning experience to foster entrepreneurial skills and innovative thinking for ten weekends at our club’s Creativity Center.

During their two and a half-month learning journey, participants get to listen to lectures of wizened real life innovators and venture capitalists and actively engage in discussions with fellow journeymen on their learnings and actual experiences in their respective projects, very much like an MBA case discussion.

Highly interesting and informative topics covered include: Creating an Entrepreneurial Mindset and Opportunity Seeking; Value Creation; Design Thinking–Empathy Stage; Design Thinking–Defining and Ideating; Design Thinking–Prototype; Design Thinking–Iterate and Design Review; How To Pitch; Mentoring Sessions; and finally, Demo Day, equivalent to an MBA final presentation of a thesis to a panel. Only this time, it is for real and if the business model passes muster could mean a windfall for the entrepreneur. It’s like a compressed graduate degree in innovative entrepreneurship.

This advocacy led RCM to Andre Yap, Ignite Home of Innovators Founder, a real life Venture Capitalist who puts his money where his mouth is, and a visionary promoter of innovative start-up ventures and virtuous capital, positioned for the common good of society. Andre’s thesis is that resources are not just limited to financial capital but also five other forms of interconnected cycles of virtuous capital — Self Capital, Network Capital, Human Capital, Success Capital, and Life Capital.

You have the public and social incubator which focuses on the public good and social needs particularly of the marginalized, cash-strapped but ideas-rich, underprivileged members of our society.

RCM spent Saturday afternoon last weekend to experience first-hand listening to five innovative ventures that have actually attracted venture capital and are generating virtuous capital. These are: Motorento, an affordable motorcycle rental for self-employed drivers aspiring for a better life; Tanggap, an affordable money remittance platform for overseas Pinoys; Shoppable, a B2B app for SMEs and Startups; Agenix, an AI powered, cost optimal search engine optimizer for SMEs; and Zennya, a virtual affordable mobile hospital infrastructure delivered to your doorstep.

While we are just now taking baby steps in this endeavor, with generous help from collaborators and partners, RCM is hopeful that our Creativity Center shall be the birthplace in the future of similar innovative ventures with a social cause.

Until next week… OBF!

For comments, email bing_matoto@yahoo.com.