Hygiene products maker Sanitary Care Products Asia (SCPA) announced its partnership with the Asian Institute of Management-Dado Banatao Incubator (AIM-DBI) through an initiative called Human Investment x Impact Grant for Entrepreneurship and Empowerment or HIIGENE that will empower the new breed of Filipino business leaders. SCPA and AIM-DBI will join forces to celebrate SCPA’s 25th anniversary through this initiative.
“As we celebrate our 25th anniversary, we would like to help and support young entrepreneurs. I would like to express my gratitude to AIM-DBI for partnering with us in this endeavor. We hope to encourage young Filipino business people to make a profit but to look beyond it and look for the welfare of their employees as a valid measure of success,” said Renato Sio, chairman and founder of SCPA.
The HIIGENE program is a search that will provide opportunities to deserving start-ups to accelerate Filipino businesses. This is the first time that AIM-DBI will emphasize people management philosophy as their top criterion, fully integrating SCPA’s DNA program. It will be anchored in the Sio family’s legacy of a people-first philosophy, inspiring entrepreneurs to put up a trailblazing company built on their peoples’ loyalty, trust, and respect.
According to AIM-DBI executive director Prim Paypon, founder of non-profit organization The Dream Project PH, “through HIIGENE, qualified start-ups have the chance to hone their leadership skills and grow their businesses through a three-month long AIM-DBI mentorship program.”
Apart from this, cash grants of up to PhP500,000 can be awarded each to up to three companies to fund their business. This collaboration is SCPA’s purposeful way to serve as a channel of blessing to Filipinos who aspire to create positive change in society.
The social impact accelerator program’s activities are all set and scheduled for the rest of the year. Interested start-ups from AIM-DBI’s pool of 2018 alumni to 2021 enrollees may send in their applications starting April1 until April 30. These applications will undergo a rigid screening to make sure the grant will be awarded to those who fit the core philosophy of both SCPA and AIM-DBI. The awarding of grants will follow in June, ending in October with a culminating activity to highlight the winner’s progress.
The launch of this philosophy-designed program was monumental for SCPA and highlights AIM-DBI’s 3rd anniversary this month. The collaboration of these two organizations strengthens their respective belief in creating meaningful human impact through local businesses.
Prim Paypon shared, “What sets HIIGENE apart from other grants are these: First, this highlights AIM-DBI’s startups as a pioneering business-academe-and-startup partnership. Second, when you talk about financial grants or competition grants here and abroad, we always talk of the innovation of the product or the technology; you rarely come across – and probably this is the first of its kind in the Philippines – where the focus of the grant is going back to the people who keep the company thriving and growing. These set #HIIGENE apart from the rest of the financial grants.”
Reaching its silver anniversary despite recent economic challenges is no easy feat. For SCPA, there is no better way to celebrate 25 years of success than giving back – not only because it is the right thing to do – but because it shares and honors a philosophy that allowed them to attain this accomplishment: Putting people first.
