Testcovery wins Mindanao’s first Start-Up Weekend

Testcovery, the crowdsourcing mobile app testing platform developed by Rolly Rulete (from the Project Noah mobile app), Iñaki Narciso, Raymond Delfin, and Tim Duhaylungsod beat out entries from 14 other Mindanao teams to become the grand winner of Davao City’s first Start-Up Weekend. With the win, the team will be one of the Philippine delegates to this year’s Global Start-Up Battle. Second place went to Team Get Me Now, a website that allows people to hire, and pay for, local services like plumbing and home repair services online. Team Get Me Now is composed of Sarah Merecido, Levi Avinante, and Eric Amigo. Third place went to Team JumpIn, a startup idea generator, whose members include Allan Manuel, John Andrew Arce, Jan Earwin Gemenez, Mancio Basoc, and Tom Secuya. A special prize went to Team Bookland, composed of Claire Apigo, Faust Prinsipe, Danilo Ramon Guillano, and Suzette Balucanag, for their educational game that teaches children good social values. For the Global Start-Up Battle, the Testcovery team will make a 90-second video pitching their idea and post it online. They’ll be competing against 138 other Start-Up teams worldwide. Fans will have the chance to vote for their favorites on Facebook. The top 15 videos will be reviewed by a panel of judges to select the winner. The winner will win thousands of dollars in Start-Up support from Amazon, Google, and other sponsors and go to GooglePlex in Seattle and the Global Entrepreneurship Congress in Rio de Jainero. Zachery Cohn of Start-Up Weekend was impressed by the ingenuity presented by the Mindanao developers. “In terms of quality [of ideas], the developers here are no different from more experienced developers from New York or Seattle. And with what they’ve learned here at Start-Up Weekend Davao, they’ll be better equipped to compete with the other Start-Ups at the Global Start-Up Battle.” The Start-Up Weekend is a hands-on, intensive learning workshop that brings entrepreneurs, developers, marketers and investors together to share ideas, learn from one another, build partnerships and launch their own Start-Up businesses in 54 hours. Start-Up Weekend events have been happening all over the world. Since 2010, more than 850 ventures from this exercise have been launched. This Start-Up Weekend, from November 9 to11 at the Philippine College of Technology, was Mindanao’s first. The participants took its slogan, “No talk, all action,” to heart and dived in head first into the process of creating a Start-Up—networking, idea-sharing and team formation while being guided by mentors and facilitators. Ultimately, the goal of Start-Up Weekend is to encourage the development of Start-Up communities all over the world. — BM, GMA News