The thread in 5 Filipino-Friendly Web 2.0 Ideas at PinoyTechBlog begs the question: are there still original Pinoy tech ideas? And if they are, can Pinoys execute them? Are we limited by technical problems, lack of skills?
I recall a PLUG (Philippine Linux Users Group) discussion on the lack of Pinoy open source. Is it because our free time needs to go to immediately productive work/sidelines/rackets, and not speculative experiments and R&D?
What technologies should we used?
I hope something original and fresh comes out in 2007 and becomes a world hit.
thoughts shared, rarely 
I believe the Imperial Equation applies here. I don’t think we lack the skills nor the exposure. We have a lot of philippine talent with great exposure and have the necessary skillset. We have people with the correct world view. Also I believe there are people with the right attitude. People with that drive to build something great.
However, I fear we lack means. There is little or no incentive to innovate in the Philippines. As compared to the silicon valleys around the world, there is very little change of getting funding for raw ideas and making it big via IPO or buyout. Most VCs in the Philippines (I use the term VC lightly) require a fully functional business in most cases before investing.
There are Philippine Technopreneurs that have made it big. The only difference between them and the average pinoy techie is definitely means.
Ah yes the means, or in other words, the money! That is why all the rhetoric about “don’t be an employee, be an entrepreneur” is hard to follow if you’re in the IT field, since R&D is expensive.
[…] Where are the Pinoy Open Source Developers? A few years ago this was a topic at PLUG. The discussion back then was that Pinoys are too busy working. If they have free time, they would rather get a sideline for extra income. (I already brought this up earlier: what’s next in Pinoy tech.) Now that there are jobs that pay you to work with open source (common with Linux system administration), is getting paid to work on the code itself far behind? There is at least one local company where people paid to hack on open source code, but this is just maintenance work as far as I can see. […]