ALUMNI

Xaverians Win HSBC's Young I.T. Entrepreneur Awards
By Harris Albert Guevarra

Posted Monday, 09-May-2005 9:30 AM

This year, out of the 100 teams from all over the country, an Atenean team composed of three undergraduate students got the Grand Prize of the HSBC's Young IT Entrepreneur Awards. The said competition honors the most brilliant business ideas by young aspiring entrepreneurs of the Philippines . Fortunately, this year's champions are headed by two alumni of Xavier School , Aaron Jarveen Ho and Steven Alexis Ng of the graduating batch of 2002.

The grand prize winner A&K Corporation conceptualized a website called e-Musikero.com that would retail original Filipino music in MP3 format to around 2.25 million Filipinos living in the USA . Their business ideas were not spared from tough questions on corporate styles from the hard-to-convince jurors, which included presidential daughter Luli Arroyo.

According to HSBC's chief Warner Manning, they organized the said contest to produce creative thinkers, intelligent risk-takers and innovative entrepreneurs. “If we are to continue to operate (HSBC) successfully in the Philippines , we need to ensure that we build a new generation of business leaders, who will change the landscape of Philippine enterprise for the better.” states Manning.

This contest also proves that young people today, particularly the young students of the country, invest more on creating good jobs instead of getting a job in multinational companies. According to Aaron Jarveen Ho, the leader of the prize-winning team, “The shift in mentality from employment to entrepreneurship is stronger and more pronounced, especially among young people. As early as now, students are asking themselves what businesses they can go into, what are the new products they can create?”

Truly, the triumph of Ho and Ng's group confirms that Xaverians think about the future and the betterment of our country and its people. Indeed this proves that a Xaverians' dream doesn't have limitations. They just have to believe in themselves and in what they are doing. “After all,” said Ho, “the millionaires right now started out with nothing.”

Go back to the top ^