Vista Land, UP team up for tech business school

Vista Land and Lifes­capes (Vista Land) and the University of the Philippines (UP) launched the first phase of development for the up­coming UP School of Tech­nology Entrepreneurship to be built in the state universi­ty’s new UP Alabang campus.

Vista Land is a compa­ny owned by former Senate President Manuel Villar.

“The opening of a UP-run innovation hub in Evia is the beginning of the reali­zation of the UP Alabang vi­sion,” said Villar.

“Creating a community that is designed to become the heart of all start-up activ­ity in the Philippines requires that bridges be built early on between brilliant minds from both the academe and indus­try. This is what the future UP Alabang will stand for,” he added.

“UP @Lab is a dream brought to life by the Villars for UP’s student-locators be­cause it brings us closer to accessingindustry funding that makes our inventions and ideas a reality,” said Luis Sison, Project Leader of Dili­man-based DOST-UP Enter­prise and Innovation Hub.

The initial phase of de­velopment is centered on the creation of an Innovation Zone and Incubator Hub in Vista Land’s Evia Lifestyle Center.

The hub, nicknamed UP @Lab by the student start-up locators and university staff, is positioned as the first project that will initiate the academe and industry partnerships that UP aims to create by put­ting up a campus in Alabang.

“Having such a facility as the first building block of UP Alabang allows us to solve issues that plague fledging start-ups, such as limited ac­cess to industry and business expertise, which have hin­dered the progress of tech­nology innovation and devel­opment in the country,” said Aura Matias, former Dean of the UP College of Engineer­ing.

“True to its name, UP @ Lab shines as a beacon of hope for technology devel­opment in our country,” she added.

UP @Lab, located in Level B1 of the Vista Land’s Evia Lifestyle Center, is a ful­ly equipped innovation hub complete with four start-up offices, two meeting rooms, and an open workspace area for visiting locators.

The hub will be run by the same team behind UP Diliman’s DOST-UP En­terprise Center as a starting point for eventual operations in UP Alabang.

The UP Alabang cam­pus will be home to two new tech-driven centers for innovation for the county’s premier university, the UP School of Technology Entre­preneurship and the UP Ala­bang Enterprise Center.

The campus complex will be co-developed by UP and Vista Land as part of a dona­tion and development agree­ment signed last June by uni­versity officials and the Villar family.

Through the agreement, UP accepted the Villars’ do­nation of five hectares of land in the upcoming University Town of Vista Land’s com­municity development Vista Alabang along Daang Hari.

The agreement also in­cludes a donation of P300 million worth of buildings and equipment, which will be used in the creation of the campus.