A good idea can be the beginning of a business — but turning an innovation into a viable enterprise often requires more than ingenuity. It needs technology, technical expertise, equipment and, just as importantly, an institution willing to help an innovator take the next step.

This is where the Department of Science and Technology (DoST) comes in.

Through its Small Enterprise Technology Upgrading Program (SETUP), DoST is helping micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) adopt technologies that can improve their operations, increase production and make Filipino businesses more competitive.

Technology and financial support

DoST Secretary Renato Solidum Jr. put the program in unusually simple terms during the Sustainability Expo 2026: “Have you been SETUP?”

Under the program, beneficiaries can receive up to P5 million capitalization, payable over three years without interest, with repayment beginning after the first year.

“If you have not been SETUP yet, please approach some of us here on how to be SETUP,” he told the audience at the Sustainability Expo 2026 last 5 August.

The assistance also provides support for product standards and testing, as well as technical advisory and consultancy services.

For DoST, however, technology upgrading is only one part of a much bigger mission: making sure that Filipino innovation reaches the people who need it.

Bayanihan innovation

Solidum said that innovation becomes meaningful only when it reaches people.

That philosophy underpins what the secretary calls “bayanihan innovation” — an ecosystem in which government provides direction and enabling policies, researchers generate knowledge, universities nurture talent, industry invests and scales technologies, communities contribute local knowledge, and young Filipinos bring creativity and fresh ideas.

SETUP is therefore intended to bridge the often difficult distance between an innovation and its commercialization. Rather than leaving promising technologies on the laboratory bench, DOST helps enterprises acquire the equipment, technology and expertise needed to bring them into the marketplace.

Solar power and EVs

The program is already producing tangible results. DoST regional offices have deployed more than 1,400 solar panels since 2025, most of them benefiting SETUP beneficiaries seeking to reduce energy consumption. The installations generate about 94 megawatt-hours of electricity a month, translating into an estimated P1.4 million in avoided electricity costs monthly.

Other DoST-supported technologies include electric tricycles, converted tricycles and e-tranvia developed through collaboration with Cagayan State University and the University of the Philippines. About 152 units of e-trikes and c-trikes have been deployed in around 20 towns across the country, and the electric vehicles are generating an estimated annual net fuel savings of P9.4 million, the DoST head claimed.

Solidum sees these initiatives as part of DoST’s effort to build an innovation economy that is not merely focused on creating technologies, but on identifying problems and developing solutions that Filipinos can actually use.

“We need to make sure that bayanihan is not simply a slogan, but a system of shared knowledge, shared responsibility, and shared action,” he said.

The department is also looking beyond individual enterprises. Solidum said DoST’s recent MSME initiatives using a smart-factory approach aim to increase productivity by 25 to 30 percent, with a target of reaching more than 10,000 MSMEs over the next two years.

From ideas to impact

The Secretary’s message to innovators is ultimately about moving from ideas to impact.

DoST wants to accelerate the development of innovations that are not simply “nice to have,” but technologies that Filipinos “must have” and “need to have” — solutions that can increase productivity, strengthen communities and make the country more resilient, he said.

For Filipino entrepreneurs and innovators, SETUP offers something more valuable than capital alone: a pathway for promising ideas to become productive businesses.

And as Solidum put it, the goal is “Science that is felt, making science tangible, accessible, and beneficial to every community.”