February 28, 2023

Last February 10 and 11, six MINT Senior High School students joined the annual Start-Up Weekend Manila. Forming two groups of three, a team advanced to the finals and was declared champions at the said competition.

Start-Up Weekend Manila is an event where professionals pitch their most feasible business idea for a start-up venture. MINT College had senior high school students represent the school. The winning team include Entrepreneurial Management (EM) students Julia Chong and Sofia Manzano, and Music Business Management (MBM) student Reyjude Ramos.

Their business pitch was a mobile application they named SWAGE, which aims to help vegans and people with diet restrictions to get access to the food they need to eat by connecting them directly to restaurants and suppliers who can help them with this issue.

The other team has Marketing students Symphony Carolino and Zia Tan, and MBM student Keanne Dedel. Their business pitch was a budgeting app they called Budget Pal, which also teaches financial literacy to young people through peer-to-peer interaction.

Marketing Program Head Mony Romana shared that these teams’ business ideas were only just for his classroom activity, but he explained that out of his students’ submissions, their teams stood out to be feasible ones for a start-up business. He believes that by allowing them to experience joining such contests would help these students to formulate ideas that could happen. He also wished that his students learned what they could during their time at Start-Up Manila.

Julia Chong, presenter and part of the winning team SWAGE advised that they are proud to have represented the school in the competition, and that young people like her should go out and meet people to expand their vision and formulate ideas that could really help in reality.

(Photos by Mr. Mony Romana)