It’s time for the Philippines to use blockchain: StartUp Village’s Carlo Calimon

The Philippines has been one of the world leaders in blockchain adoption, but Carlo Calimon believes the Southeast Asian nation can do better. In an interview with CoinGeek Backstage, the StartUp Village president discussed his company’s experience with blockchain and how the Philippines can better leverage the technology.

Calimon was at the Block Dojo Philippines Investor Night in Manila, where the first cohort
showcased their products to some of Asia’s most prolific tech investors.

In an interview with CoinGeek Backstage reporter Claire Celdran, Calimon praised Block Dojo’s “very rigorous program, which gives me more confidence in [the startups’] ability to execute.”

The three startups—RealFlip, FleetHive, and APDXS—are targeting solutions for age-old challenges where others “have been unable to crack the code.”

“I’m hoping that this may be the opportune time for these solutions to actually come out and for these problems to be solved.”

Calimon has been a blockchain enthusiast for years. He believes the technology would have seen higher adoption if not for its association with use cases “that are not so palatable,” such as ‘crypto.’

He believes that the time has come for Filipinos to embrace blockchain to solve some of the challenges that have plagued them for years.

“People just need to experience and see how it positively impacts them,” he noted, adding that the end user doesn’t necessarily need to know how it works, aligning with one of BSV blockchain’s tenets of using blockchain as plumbing.

At StartUp Village, Calimon has invested in blockchain startups, with supply chain management as the most common target market.

Besides blockchain, Calimon discussed his investing practices. On what he considers the most crucial factor before investing in a startup, he pointed to the founders and their passion for solving a particular problem. He then evaluates how innovative an idea is and whether it’s unique from other existing solutions.

Watch Block Dojo Philippines: Pushing startup boundaries to create solutions