Stupid is the New Genius: The Road to Benilde Prize 2016
Originally posted by Mark Joseph “MJ” Euste in his blog. MJ was one of the original members of DreamWeave who won the Benilde Prize 2.0.
It all started with a dream. It was November of 2014 when a circle of student leaders from Ateneo de Naga University joined a social innovation bootcamp. Launched by The Dream Project PH, The Dream Expo –Bicol is joined by various social enterprises and young individuals who are passionate in driving towards social change and development. Our group originally consisted of members from the pioneer batch of the Ateneo LeaderShape Program. During the Filipino Laboratory for Investigatory/Innovation Projects (FLIP) Workshop, we identified a social observation that is present in our society today and one social pain that we currently face is the public education system. To give rise to this, we were challenged to create and innovate a project that would benefit those in the margins in the context of the education agenda. From that day, DreamBox was conceived. DreamBox is an innovation that works like a portable educational kit which highlights the power of dreams of children and how it helps towards the actualization of their full learning potentials. We ranked 2nd place overall in the workshop where we bested different participating groups in the region.
Months later, I came across with an online poster which promises 500,000 pesos worth of seed funding and incubation program to “an idea that can change the world” (as what the poster says), entitled the Benilde Prize 2016. A brainchild of the De La Salle — College of Saint Benilde, Benilde Prize is the first university-based social design competition in the Philippines. I was thrilled on the idea of winning such a huge amount of money that can possibly enable us to make DreamBox a reality! After weeks of deliberation among the group we decided to join the competition. It was a last minute decision for all of us to comply to the requirements where we have to select three official team representatives, fill up an application form, secure recommendation letters from a colleague and a mentor, and compose a persuasive position paper on the team’s point of view (POV) on our chosen UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The Benilde Prize, in its commitment to finding and funding the next innovative idea which will contribute to the achievement of the SDGs in the Philippines, focused this year on 8 SDGs labeled as “People and Planet”. Among these, the team opted to choose the 4th among the 17 SDGs which is Quality Education — “ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning and opportunities for all”. Our POV essay discussed the value of education and how it can transcend into a more valuable tool in empowering the youth, all for the ultimate purpose of drawing meaning in dreaming together and making it a reality.
The team, now composed of the three representative-members (me, Phoebe, and Kath), went on as shortlisted participant qualified to undergo the Benilde Open Online Courses (BOOCs), a four-class crash course which introduced us to the concepts of human-centered design and on how this approach can be used to create innovative, effective, and sustainable solutions for social change. It challenged our perspectives on social innovation with the new concepts introduced to us. Always keeping a beginner’s mindset to make room for curiosity is one basic rule we have learned to apply. Most importantly, it is the process of iteration, of going back and back again, that enabled us to go through all the details by asking and immersing with the people to whom we are designing for. The whole course went on for more than a month where the team had to wrestle with busy schedules and exams while completing the course. It was both exciting and frightening for some part that we have to make extra effort to submit quality outputs within a given limited amount of resources which includes our time. Even though we found a hard time meeting with each other during weekdays because of our academic concerns, we managed to pull off the whole course with magis. After all the classes, we were asked to submit a revised POV essay which served as our ticket to Bukidnon for the Ideation Bootcamp of the Benilde Prize 2016.
Along with four other teams: Farm Metro (Mindanao State University, Iligan Institute of Technology), Team MUST (Mindanao University of Science and Technology), HealthTrack (Adamson University), and Team PEGH (University of Immaculate Conception — Davao), our team was able to make it to the Semifinals for the Ideation Bootcamp held last February 3–6, 2015 at Ultra Winds Mountain Resort in Baungon, Bukidnon. We were fortunate to have Sir Sonny from OSA to accompany us while serving as our mentor. During the bootcamp, we were mentored by the Chair of Benilde Prize 2016, Ms. Peachy Pacquing, Associate Dean of New Media Studies (DLS-CSB), Ms. Abigail Mapua-Cabanilla, Program Director for the School of Design and Arts Continuing Education Program (DLS-CSB), Mr. Jag Garcia, Full-time Lecturer on Communication Research & Social Design, Multimedia Arts Program (DLS-CSB), Mr. TQ Antiqueno, Co-founder of Yellow Boat of Hope Foundation, Inc., Mr. Jay Jaboneta, and Director of World Youth Alliance — Asia Pacific, Ms. Mary Imbong. During this bootcamp, I had personally encountered a paradigm shift with Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle which taught me that above all, the why of things must be the center of everything. Insights became ideas; ideas became innovations; innovations became actions — actions that can bring about change. By the end of it, Mr. Jay Jaboneta shared with us three things. One, we are all disturbed — disturbed by the fact that something is “wrong” and that we must do something “right”. Two, we are stupid — stupid, in the truest sense of the word, implies that we should not be afraid to think outside the box. Three, we could be on board in bringing hope to people. To quote, “It’s not about changing the world, but changing the world of some people, one (starfish) at a time” [in reference to the “Starfish Story”].
Having been qualified to the Semifinals, the battle was not finished yet. We were asked to build a prototype while applying all the things we learned during the Ideation Bootcamp. Our team used the whole empathy process of human-centered design during our community immersion in barangay Balongay, Calabanga, Camarines Sur to get to know more of our “users”, the term used describing the people whom we are designing for. During our two-day immersion, we were able to gather stories of all sorts and gain valuable insights from the community. With the best ideas we came up with in the brainstorming while employing the use of an empathy map, our team was able to arrive with a revised version of DreamBox — the DreamBank, an investment tool/system for education symbolized by the children’s dream by saving money from pagtitiklad or nipa shingling which is the main source of livelihood in barangay Balongay.
While we have just survived our prefinal examination week, we jumped out of joy when we received the news in the morning of February 24th that we have made it to the Finals! Along with us who went to the Finals were teams from MUST and MSU-IIT. It was a roller coaster adventure for the whole team, so to speak. From our almost-missed flight to Manila to our sleepless nights of anxiety in preparation for the Finals, it was indeed tough and rough for all of us. We were faced by the fact that our final examinations, too was just around the corner yet we still have to prepare for us to be battle-ready for the Benilde Prize Finals. Surely, it was a hard-win fight. “Nothing worth having comes easy.” It was God’s blessing that we have a strong support system that did help us a lot to fight through. We have our family and friends who were ever supportive to this endeavor. Also, our team was lucky enough to have other mentors to guide us. We have sir JC de los Reyes and our “ate” Kim Seng who also served as our mentors all throughout our journey. Sir Sonny was not able to personally come with us due to some official responsibilities as OSA director during the said dates. However, it was God’s plan for ate Kim to be his representing mentor since she has been with us from the very start.
It was indeed a one crazy ride during the Social Business Bootcamp, a two-day pre-Benilde Prize Finals mentoring which enabled us to fine-tune our projects in preparation for the final pitch. Among our credible mentors were Rina Malonzo and Trina dela Rama of Portfolio MNL, Rachel Eilbott of MakeSense, Alvie Benitez and Shanon Khadka of Gawad Kalinga, and Prof. Gaston Ortigas of the Asian Institute of Management. We were caught off-guard at first that we really need to work hard for DreamBank since it needed a lot of polishing. Within our team, at that point in time, we have not yet finalized every detail of it so our mentor (sir Tq) personally asked us to pivot on our idea if necessary in order for us to catch up with the other teams as they have already established their solid prototypes. On the first day of the Social Business Bootcamp, we presented DreamBank but in a rather more detailed fashion unlike our previous prototype submission. It was an educational plan focused on education of the children by partnerships with possible sponsors/donors. With this, yet, we were still clouded by the idea of it by being too “pushy” when it does not really necessarily cater to our users. It was a turning point for all of us in the team to be humble enough to accept that there is really no poverty of dreams, but the problem is deeply rooted on the structures surrounding the whole education system. So again, we were asked to pivot on our idea as much as possible in order for us to create a human-centered innovation. Insights upon insights revealed to us that it is really not the dreams of the children which is the problem, but the opportunities available for them to actually realize their dreams upon graduation, especially with the new K-12 education system being employed in the country today. And so the next day, we were able to come up with a totally different project but still grounded on the common cause of education — the DreamWeave.
DreamWeave is a product of countless pivots and iterations on our original DreamBox project. It was an idea built-up by the team and the suggestions from our bootcamp mentors. DreamWeave is a metaphor of the dreams of children from Balongay, Calabanga who feel this social pain that when they graduate, opportunities are scarce especially to those who did not finish a college degree. This is so because of the cultural bias of employers against non-college graduates — that most hiring companies are more inclined towards educational attainment-based hiring rather than being competency-based. So for the incoming first batch of K-12 graduates by 2018 who will be limited by the opportunities of being hired and hiring companies who are limited by opportunities of hiring efficiently, DreamWeave provides a space for future K-12 graduates to portray their true value and connect with hiring companies. DreamWeave is basically a tech platform, or in other words, an online portal which strives toward opportunity inclusion while providing a more efficient way for companies of getting to know potential employees beyond educational attainment through a workplace simulation game which assesses and displays results of the graduates’ “soft skills”.
This “idea that can change the world” dubbed as DreamWeave was presented before an esteemed panel of judges during the Benilde Prize Finals held at Hotel Benilde, Malate, Manila last March 9, 2016. And after a thorough deliberation, our team was announced as the winner of Benilde Prize 2016! A trophy designed by Ann Pamintuan was handed to each of us by Br. Dennis Magbanua, FSC, President of De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde. Jokingly, the audience went on cheering “Go Ateneo, One Big Fight!” for congratulating us for making such a news “Ateneo de Naga wins [De La Salle] Benilde Prize 2016” (laughs).
Please visit benildeprize.com for updates on Benilde Prize 3.0.
