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By Yeng Ocampo, DOST Media
Service
VIRGILIO L. MALANG considered
himself a “walkabout innoventor,” since he was always looking to
improve in existing technologies or invent new ones.
His innovations taken altogether
(7 patents for invention, 16 utility models, 10 industrial designs,
7 patents-pending and counting) are simple, plainsong types
requiring no advance mathematics and no knowledge of esoteric
logical principles to appreciate.
A son of a teacher, he aspires
for innovations that would not only be personally remunerative but
would also advance the interests of others.
Consider, for example, his recent
invention now in the commercialization pipeline: Rice beer fortified
with multivitamins, dubbed as vitamin beer because it is
characterized by the use of indigenous rice as alternative to barley
and is fortified with vitamin B which is usually depleted in the
bodies of drinkers. The invention boosts the local rice industry
while making the national passion for beer-drinking a healthier
habit.
Another invention is the patient
side-turning hospital bed. It enables a single caregiver to turn a
patient from lying on his back to his side and vice-versa to prevent
decubitus bedsores or its aggravation. It also allows quicker
garment change. Malang for sometime worked as marketing and
sales executive until he founded Humana Pharmaceuticals which is
dedicated to manufacturing and marketing his own patented
innovations such as the gynecological douching apparatus, female
genital wash, a vaginal cleansing bar, a vaginal dusting and a
gynecological douche collectively trademarked Feminet. He has also
invented a Light-refracting earpick which is selling briskly though
dispensing MDs.
A Ph.D. in Commerce, Malang is
almost entirely self-taught in the realm of technology innovation
and has learned chastening lessons in innovation entrepreneurship.
An example of his inventions is
the vehicular warning device which has a patented retractable and
extensible cone. A blinking light is disposed inside the conical
dome. While already endorsed for technical efficiency and
safety by the LTO since 2003, it is prevented from being freely sold
because of a very little-known uncanny 1974 decree by then
President Marcos limiting an early warning device for land vehicles
to a triangular design only. Distressingly, Congress seems to
see no motive to abrogate the decree.
The Philippines is the first
country in the world to impose a blanket ban on waste incineration
in the Clean Air Act. So under ordinary expectations, another Malang
invention—the excised tissues and organs disposer, a non-burn
alternative to incineration of regulated medical waste should have
become the an easy winner. Medical wastes pose dangers of disease
transmission while burning body parts cause pollution. Malang’s
invention has not found quite headed for a niche in the market
because the Department of Environment and Natural Resources has
allowed incineration to go on indefinitely.
Malang is not discouraged. He
believes for innoventors, an activity that is only about 80 percent
efficient should still be taken seriously; it’s worth exploring
the odd crazy notions or trying the occasional mad experiment if
only to get a bit of fun as a by-product. Indeed, it might seem
optimal to use 80 percent of one’s time this way. He
recommends it. That is why he founded the Manila Innovation
Development Society (MINDS), Inc. in 1999 and has remained its
president till now. MINDS is an accredited NGO by the City
Council of Manila which has helped the city win its economic and
social struggles by accelerating the increased quality of its
intellectual capital and the quantity of its “innoventors” and
marketable “innoventions.”
MINDS is premised on the idea
that innovation is not the enclave of special people–– every
person is a special kind of innovator.
Targeting the top quarter of
students in the 32 public high schools of Manila, MINDS launched its
Creativity Cram School (CCS) program comprising crash skill courses
or “cramming” in practical creativity, idea generation,
technical innovation, Intellectual Property, and innovations
entrepreneurship–– skills not emphasized in Philippine schools
as much as curriculum mastery and rote memorization. MINDS has been
showcasing working prototypal models by students inspired by
CCS side-by-side with works of mainstream inventors in such high
profile events like Tekno Maynila and its sequel at Harrison Plaza,
MINDS@Work in Quiapo, Reinventing Pinoy Inventors in Makati’s
Glorietta, Schools of Thought Campus Tour, Inventors Invade Avenida
Rizal, MINDS @Muelle de Gallina, Bonifacio Shrine Tienda, and
Inventors by the Bay.
Specially cherished was
Manila’s Greatest Kid Inventors. MINDS sent the top two winning
students accompanied by a science teacher adviser to compete at the
2001 Asia Children Inventions Contest in the Japan Expo at
Kitakyushu. Not quite surprisingly, they brought home the first two
top honors. MINDS’ current regular membership is 540
individuals (25 mainstream inventors; 270 public high school
students, 45 science teachers from Manila secondary schools; and, 200
college students comprising MINDS Chapter at PUP Sta. Mesa).
Thereby, MINDS is bigger than all other inventor clubs in the
country lumped together.
MINDS owns the bragging rights
for organizing the Manila Innoventors Helpdesk, a pioneering free
information and assistance center for IP-related enquiries with the
ambitious aims of helping make Manilans more aware of the importance
of IP in the field of innovation.
Many people took more than passing interest in the project so
much so that one fine day in 2003, Billy was among the 10
Outstanding Manilans recognized and awarded by the City of Manila
(despite the trifle anomaly that he reside miles away in Parañaque).
On awards night, then US Ambassador Francis Ricciardone as the main
guest.
Now at 50-something, his credits
list also includes 18 awards won in 7 annual National Inventors Week
invention contests sponsored by the DOST, which is sort of a
standing record to date. He shares some with his co-inventor,
through his wife Yasmin Espiritu, a nurse-cum-pharmacist who is
herself a multiawarded inventor with her own patents. Some
pundits call them a Team of Two. Billy holds 16 international
inventions contest awards including a World Intellectual Property
Organization Gold Medal for Best Invention and a 5-medal win at the
2002 Seoul International Inventions Fair for which he received
official congratulations plus a P1-million windfall check from
President Gloria Arroyo in Malacañang.
Lightning struck twice two years
later when he carted away 6 medals and 3 trophies to complete a
bumper harvest at Genius Europe which was billed as a “somber
battleground for 1,000 inventions by 540 inventors from 21 of 46
participating countries” commemorating a historical
landmark––the expansion of the European Union to 25 member
states.
He exhibited his
“innoventions” in several invention fairs from Kuala Lumpur to
Geneva to New Jersey. He took particular pride in having
written the very first patents (invention, utility model, industrial
design) in Filipino in the 59-year history of the intellectual
property system in the country, thus breaking the historical
monopoly of English in technical writing. He suspected that
trivia helped sway the jury for the Filipino Inventors Hall of Fame
to include him in the 2000 inaugural class.
As a member of the National Press
Club, he wrote a column for a national tabloid, Evening Pinoy, which
provided fodder for potboiler Sex in a Minute. Contrary to
what the title may imply, this book does not advocate a 60-second
stopwatch approach to sex.
To this extent was assembled
another book Inventions & Innovations: A Glimpse of the Filipino
Legacy. Published in 1998 through grants from TAPI and WIPO,
it was his humble contribution to the Philippines centennial year of
nationhood. Now, he has
a vade mecum tentatively titled So people want to draft and
prosecute their own patents, targeted for launching at the 2008 NIW
to fill what had seemed to him for sometime a gap in literature on
the subject. He also makes time to contribute articles to the
DOST S&T Post while editor of Re:Inventors, the only sustained
newsletter for Filipino inventors with local and international
circulation. He has had lots of practice in writing
disclosures to innovations by students, their teachers, and fellow
inventors before he earned in 2006 his credentials as resident
representative of the Intellectual Property office of the
Philippines and as a patent agent.
Billy also authored an audacious
policy for the SME financing and marketing group Filipino
Inventors Multipurpose Cooperative (FIMCOOP)
during the entire six years he was chairman: “Sell only
what we innovate; innovate only what sells!” Actually, this big
wish formula is originally attributable to his idol Thomas Alva
Edison but it captures in essence what he believes to be the mission
of “innoventors”: to absorb themselves in making commerceable
products or processes or improvements thereof–– and making them
quickly. That salutary phenomenon is what being a “walkabout
innoventor” is all about.
“What is past is prologue.” an axiom perhaps never more
opt than when applied to the Gawad LIDER nominee….and that is Mr.
Billy Malang.
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