To validate the results and analysis of the implementation of the Technology Business Incubation (TBI) Program of the DA-Bureau of Agricultural Research (BAR), the bureau convened partner R4D institutions to a five-day validation workshop and proposal writeshop for the expanded program on 6-10 February 2023 at the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA) headquarters in Los Baños, Laguna.
“We want to come up with a [handbook] that will assist us in implementing and institutionalizing the TBI program at the DA [regional] level. We do understand that the [state universities and colleges] SUCs already have an ongoing TBI program. And we want to identify the possible interventions or support that [DA-BAR] can further provide [to] our SUCs and at the same time strengthen and capacitate our regional offices,” said Kris Thea Marie B. Hernandez, acting assistant Research Program Development Division head and Impact Evaluation and Policy Section head, in her opening remarks.
The workshop validated the accuracy of the information gathered, analysis conducted, and recommendations proposed through feedback and suggestions from selected TBI stakeholders covered by the study; facilitated the integration of comments to the final report of the project; and revised and updated the guidelines of the DA-BAR TBI Program.
“Entrepreneurial incubation can push agricultural rural development. I encourage you to include the TBI program in your strategic business planning and align it with the National Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization and Industrialization Plan,” said project leader and technology transfer and entrepreneurship expert Glenn N. Baticados in his closing remarks.
“If you can actually create your brand, your identity as early as now, that is something worth investing in. Tandaan niyo ‘ yan. Branding is a very important concept when you are dealing with TBI,” he stressed to attending participants from DA-regional offices and SUCs.
Meanwhile, the writeshop is expected to produce quality proposals for funding under DA-BAR TBI Program. For 2023, the bureau will be implementing a ladderized funding support to DA regional offices for the assessment, development, and operationalization of their respective TBI programs.
Participants included representatives from six DA regional offices, namely Cagayan Valley, Central Luzon, CALABARZON, Bicol, SOCCSKSARGEN, Cordillera Administrative Region; DA-National Fisheries Research and Development Institute; and four SUCs, namely Capiz State University, Mariano Marcos State University, Pampanga State Agricultural University, and Visayas State University. They are joined by experts from SEARCA and University of the Philippines Los Baños.
In 2021, DA-BAR launched its TBI Program, complementing its technology commercialization program, to support DA regional offices and SUCs in effectively transferring the technologies that they have generated. The program was pegged to serve as a concentration hub to facilitate the transfer of mature technologies generated.