Press Release

Smart Buddy bats for student entrepreneurship

[September 14, 2007/ Manila] - University of the Visayas students gamely pose for the camera during one of the general assemblies held for student orgs participating in the Smart Buddy Bigshot Academy.

As part of its drive to encourage youth entrepreneurship, Smart Buddy, the premier prepaid brand of leading wireless services provider Smart Communications, Inc. (SMART) launched the Smart Buddy Bigshot Academy, a nationwide program that lets student organizations from universities and colleges hone their members’ entrepreneurial skills and become marketing mavericks.

A total of 306 student organizations from 102 universities and colleges have been tapped to join the Smart Buddy Bigshot Academy program, after general assemblies were held in Manila, Tuguegarao, Baguio, Pampanga, Laguna, Cebu, Tacloban, Bacolod, Davao, and Cagayan de Oro. These participating organizations are expected to work as a group, and think out-of-the-box to come up with the most innovative ways to activate the most number of Smart Buddy SIMs.

The student orgs have been divided into nine areas: South NCR, North NCR, Central Luzon, North Luzon, South Luzon, East Visayas, West Visayas, North Mindanao and South Mindanao. One winning student organization from each of the nine areas will receive the distinction of being the Smart Buddy Bigshot Academy, plus prizes that include cash, and co-presentorship of a big concert of the country’s most popular band, Smart endorser Bamboo.

The biggest draw to the participating student organizations, however, is the chance to join the 20th Philippine Advertising Congress in Subic, Zambales on November 21-24, 2007. The Ad Congress gathers the best and the brightest of the Philippine advertising and marketing industries every two years, and the winning Smart Buddy Bigshot Academies will have the opportunity to attend the conference and gain valuable insights otherwise unavailable to them, courtesy of Smart.

With the prizes awaiting them, the participating student organizations are gung-ho about the strategies they will employ in order to be the Smart Buddy Bigshot Academy from their area. “We will take advantage of the sheer number of students from all the satellite schools of the University of the Visayas to trigger viral marketing,” said Chris Lorezo, an officer of one of the participating student organizations from Cebu City.

Danilo Mojica, head of Smart’s wireless consumer division and the company’s chief marketing man, points out that the program is aimed at helping the students realize their potentials as the marketing bigshots of tomorrow.

"We see millions of university and college graduates still unemployed, despite the huge demand for degree-holders. By engaging these young people to compete for great rewards, we hope to stir their creative energies and help pave the way for their entry either into an enterprise of their own, or into the dynamic marketing industry, and then it could translate into a generation of job opportunities," Mojica said.