Young CEOs urge students to innovate, join Smart’s SWEEP Awards

is bringing young entrepreneurs to various schools all over the country to encourage technology and engineering students to come up with mobile and digital innovations and join the country’s biggest technology competition, the Smart Wireless Engineering Education Program (SWEEP) Innovation and Excellence Awards.

The 13-year-old SWEEP Awards has helped hundreds of students turn their ideas into working prototypes. Some of them, like 28-year-old Chino Atilano of TimeFree Innovations, were able to build their own startups.

Ivan Payawal, CEO of The Bazket, an online shop for vintage and artisanal items, shared with the Mapua students how his ideas were rejected so many times. “But even if you fail 99 percent of the time, that remaining 1 percent chance of success should keep you going,” he said.

During the road show, the students were taught how to build a business model, make a value proposition, and how to identify their competitive advantage, target market, distribution plans, key resources and partners, and cost structure.

The winning team in this year’s SWEEP Awards, which has the theme “Changing Lives Through Mobile and Digital Innovations,” will get P300,000. The second placer will get P200,000; third placer, P100,000. Their respective schools will get a grant equivalent to half of their prizes.

Eligible to join are students aged 17 to 25, who can come up with a wireless application under certain 1. For information, visit

Deadline for submission of entries is September 30.