DOST nominee wins 2021 Injap Sia Outstanding Young Entrepreneur Award

The Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI), the largest business organization in the country, has awarded John Dave Dueñas, the CEO and Founder of HYBrain Development Corp. as the Outstanding Young Entrepreneur – Service Category and the Injap Sia Outstanding Young Entrepreneur Award for 2021. The award was given in a virtual awarding ceremony on November 17, 2021, as part of the 47th Philippine Business Conference and Expo.

DOST VI nominated Dueñas for the prestigious award because the agency believes he embodies the qualities of the young entrepreneurs and innovators that the country needs to move forward despite the pandemic.

HYBrain is a software development team that he founded in 2016 in Bacolod City that focuses on Healthcare Information Technology, with its mission of leading the way in augmenting healthcare systems and bridging the gap of services through innovation.

HYBrain was one of the startups of then DOST VI-GIA-funded project “ICT Start-Ups Entrepreneurship Support Program” in cooperation with the Bacolod-Negros Occidental Federation for ICT (BNEFIT), Inc. and the Province of Negros Occidental. The company was also a beneficiary of the Innovation-enabling Fund (iFund) under the Small Enterprises Technology Upgrading Program (SETUP) of the Department of Science and Technology in 2019.

Through the leadership of Mr. Dueñas, HYBrain developed and rolled out the MEDTrix Labs, a Laboratory Information System created specifically to cater to the needs of Covid-19 testing at the height of the pandemic. The system minimized patient-to-frontliner contact in gathering and processing specimens and the delivery of the results.

Mr. Dueñas shares the award to all the Filipino startup founders who dream of a better Philippines.

“This award is an affirmation of my team’s hard work in alleviating the healthcare delivery processes through digital transformation. It is a culmination of the support that the government agencies like DICT, DOST, and DTI has given to startups, and it is also an attestation on the role of innovation in jumpstarting our pandemic-beaten economy.”

“Our healthcare system has been clamoring for the support and attention that it rightfully deserves for a long time, and this pandemic has highlighted that need more than ever. Since our team started we have been rallying for the use of information and communications technology in the healthcare industry to aid our healthcare professionals in administering care through digitization of processes, data analytics, and electronic medical records”

PCCI has been holding the ISOYEA Award since 2015 and is the brainchild of PCCI President Benedicto Yujuico, who recognized the importance of developing young and innovative business leaders in the country. The award was inspired by the success of Edgar “Injap” Sia II who, at a young age, founded and steered the highly successful Mang Inasal food chain.  (GTReyes/DOST VI)