US tech startup sets up base in PH

US-BASED machine learning solutions provider Wave Computing is setting up base in the Philippines to create jobs to mine the country’s immense volume of data.

Derek Meyer, chief executive Global City in Taguig.

The company targets to build a team of 15 to 20 people and grow its local operations from there, he said.

“Our doors are open, we’re actively working right now, and we’re in a few weeks,” he told reporters on the sidelines of an event called The Chamber Connects with Silicon Valley in Quezon City on Wednesday night.

He said the move is intended to “amass data engineers and data scientists to harness for our global outreach [plans],” adding that the Philippines boasts of a rich talent pool that Wave Computing could

Rufino Olay 3rd, vice president at Wave Computing who will also head the local operations, said that aside from data scientists, the company will also be looking for programmers and mathematicians.

“The enthusiasm of the Filipinos is that they want to stay in the country and I think what we’re going to do is provide that, instead of [the country] having a brain drain and [see these people] go overseas,” Olay added.

in the country but said that this was “a great opportunity from a budget standpoint.” He said the country has a “tremendous wealth of data” given the booming industries of manufacturing, business sector, among others.

“Again this is about monetizing the data and mining that data. With so much data in the Philippines, we think it’s a good opportunity to have that data and take advantage of that,” he said.

“Anything that demands large quantities of data we will pursue,” he added.