11.30.08 Inovent’s Noriel Mallari on Engineering the Ilumina

THE STORY BEHIND THE INOVENT LOGO

In making the much-talked about Inovent Electronics logo, we approached Dwight Co, an extremely talented designer and brand strategist.  Based on dialogue and discussions with him, he eventually gave us an absolutely world-class logo. This is the story behind this piece of art …

PRESENTING THE ILUMINA

Sharing the Ilumina Launch presentation

THE MAKING OF THE ILUMINA LCD iTV

In this video, we see Inovent’s Industrial Designers creating the Ilumina. Led by Chief Design Inoventor Mitch Shivers, the team is further composed of Peter Can, Jonas Peralta, and Jaed del Moral.

The hardware was handled by engineer Noriel Mallari, while the software interface was under the care of Dig it All Solutions’ Val Gonzales, Jon Danao, and Ruben Canlas.

This video was made by Matthew Cua using Animoto.

Filipino Tech Team Unveils “Intelligent TV”

A new Filipino tech company yesterday unveiled the prototype of an LCD interactive television (iTV) set, claiming to be the first of its kind to be produced in the Philippines. Dubbed “Ilumina”, the LCD iTV was described by its creators as “a television set with the brain of a personal computer.”

The Ilumina contains a flat-screen LCD display, a hard drive and a multimedia center that allows owners to see movies, listen to music, watch and record TV shows, and even surf the web.

Its creator Inovent Inc revealed that the Ilumina was produced from easily available electronic parts to prove a point. “We want to show that the Filipinos can do it, that we stand a chance in the electronic industry and we can even excel in it,” said Inovent Inc. Chief Inoventor Brian Quebengco during the launch at Fully Booked in Bonifacio High Street. “To our knowledge, this has never been done before in the Philippines. The team is actually making history.”

Ilumina is being positioned as a showcase of Filipino ingenuity particularly on engineering and design. It signals the changing habits of younger generations who grew up on the iPod, MP3s, and TV-show and movie downloads. In April of this year, iTunes took the title of top music store, besting even top-selling offline stores like Best Buy and Walmart.

“Ilumina is at the crux of a major change in our lifestyles. With Ilumina, you can play music and watch movies from Ilumina itself. No more need for separate players. It will provide that convenience to everyone,” added Mark Ruiz, Chief Marketing Inoventor.

To provide the intelligence for Ilumina, Quebengco and Ruiz tapped Dig It All Solutions, a software development company specializing on open source software. Val Gonzales, Dig It All Solutions CEO, said “We had a very tight schedule. Creating software from scratch would have been a disaster. Open source software allowed us to build an interface for Ilumina very quickly.”

Quebengco also pointed out the benefit of harnessing the creative power of a multi-disciplinary, inter-school team. “Ilumina demonstrates the power of creative collaboration. Our team members are from LaSalle, Ateneo and UP. Our normal stereotype is that these schools compete against each other, but we can also put our minds together and create something beautiful, something we can all be proud of.”

Quebengco attributed the success of the prototype to the effort and dedication of the Ilumina team. To keep expenses to a minimum, the Ilumina team took a cue from the garage startups of Silicon Valley. Working in garages to keep expenses low and rendering work at minimal or no costs.

“We simply copied the Silicon Valley way and added a modern day convenience — virtual meetings through chat and a web bulletin board. All of us have day jobs but were willing to work extra hours to complete the prototype. Some of us have not slept for more than three days,” Gonzales said.

InoventDesign has promised future upgrades both in the hardware and software of Ilumina. The launch coincided with the 145th birthday of Andres Bonifacio, leader of the revolution against 300 years of Spanish rule.

For more information, visit:

http://inoventrevolution.wordpress.com
http://www.inoventdesign.com

Contact:

Brian Quebengco
Chief Inoventor
0917 793 4478
brian@inoventdesign.com

Mark Ruiz
Chief Marketing Inoventor
0928 505 5713
mark@inoventdesign.com

Val Gonzales
CEO Dig It All Solutions Inc.
0921 723 2323
val@digitalsolutions.ph

The Heroes’ Journey: ilumina LCD iTV

The Heroes’ Journey: Ilumina LCD iTV

The story of the Ilumina as shared by the Founder & Chief Inoventor of Inovent, Inc., Brian Quebengco

The story starts with my dream for Inovent Inc. to champion Philippine ideas. After reading ‘Built to Last’ in 2001, I always felt that we could do what Sony did and make ‘Made in the Philippines’ mean something.

After 6 years, late in 2007, I read an article about a small company in the US besting Samsung and Sony to become the No.1 LCD TV seller in North America. And surprisingly, Vizio, Inc. did it in 5 years. This was when I got the idea of penetrating the LCD TV market because I noticed that it was becoming a price war and there was no new value being introduced to consumers’ lives. No radical inovention. But I also had to find a consumer niche that wasn’t being answered by existing LCD TVs. This is where i noticed the great divide between TV, PC and the Internet. And the answer I got was an LCD TV with a separate PC component and internet connectivity. This is when I decided to call it the LCD iTV category; a fresh and new category.

Come January of 2008, my first task was to work with the Senior Inovent Design team composed of Peter Can, Jaed Del Moral & Jonas Peralta to see if we could design a new LCD TV. After the team spent hours in electronic shops and many attempts in design, I finally had a thought. “What if you could cover the sides of the LCD iTV when it was mounted?” And after advising Jonas Peralta on curving the sides to reach the wall, he was able to perfectly execute and design the look of the LCD iTV. What also stood out was the utility design function of allowing the LCD iTV to stand on its own with out a stand. I immediately patented it.

It was also in the month of January that I decided to brand it as the ‘Ilumina’, which signified light and knowledge. I wanted this to be a symbol of what’s best in the Philippines. Wayne Yaptinchay, one of our Senior Design Inoventors helped me with designing the fonts of the Ilumina logo. I immediately filed the logo with the IPO.

My next task now was to go on a road show and build a Super Team of experts in the field of Electronics Engineering and Software Development. In February of 2008, a good friend Ivan Porcaua (who will hopefully join Inovent after he graduates from DLSU) introduced me to Noriel Mallari, a Professor of Electrical Engineering in DLSU. After showing Noriel the design and explaining the big task at hand, he accepted my offer to join the team. Aside from being the best in Electronics Engineering, Noriel was very young and eager to champion Philippine ideas. He was perfect for the mission.

And as faith would have it, I met Mark Ruiz early in 2008. Mark Ruiz was already a well-known, seasoned entrepreneur and teacher of Innovation. And it was a blessing that we both shared the passion for Inovention and the belief that the Philippines could champion globally creative Ideas. It was just common sense to humbly invite him to join the team to help Inovent Inc. further its cause.

Finally, after seeking advice from my cousin Jojo Quebengco, I realized that I could tap a software company to help design the software and interface of the LCD iTV. Initially, me, Noriel and Ricson Que (IT Director at DLS-CSB who was helping me out in finding programmers) were trying to invite individual software programmers, but this proved to be futile because they all had full-time jobs. I decided to change my approach and ask Mark Ruiz if he knew any software companies that would fit the bill. He immediately recommended Ruben Canlas Jr. of Dig It All Solutions Inc. And upon visiting him during a talk he had with Intel at the Renaissance Hotel in Makati, I was very happy to find out that he too shared our dream that we Filipinos can do it. Now it was time to begin the impossible project.

The code name we gave the project was “Project Faith”, which pretty much expressed the amount of faith we would need to pull this impossible stunt. July of 2008 was when we began. The team was broken into 4 units: Industrial Design (Peter Can, Jonas Peralta, & Jaed Del Moral), Hardware (Noriel Mallari), Software/Interface (Val Gonzales and Jon Danao of Dig It All Solutions Inc.), and Viral Marketing (Mark Ruiz, Ruben Canlas and myself). We all had full-time jobs, short on people, and very low on cash. And with an audacious timeline to launch the prototype within 4 months, we decided to throw it up to faith and press on.

What transpired was the wildest and craziest time of my life working with the best of the Philippines doing the impossible. The trio team of Jonas, Jaed, and Peter made the mold with their bare hands buying raw materials and mixing them together!  Noriel, in spite of badly getting sick never slowed down his pace and assembled it together in his garage. Being responsible for the hardware and electronics made him the middle man for both design and software. Val and Jon were able to do rapid prototyping of the Ilumina interface by using open source software. This is normally a task reserved for 4 to 5 programmers, yet they all did it while balancing their day jobs. Ruben, Mark and I focused on managing the team and the quality of the work while preparing and planning the execution of the viral campaign. Mark was responsible in starting the blog campaign as well as the teaser videos for the Ilumina and Inovent Revolution. Respectively, Mark tapped the help of Dwight Co who designed the awesome logo for Inovent Electronics, Inc. and Matthew Cua who pumped up our blood with his inspiring radical videos for both the “Inovent Revolution” and “Ilumina teaser.”

And along the way, special Filipinos who believed in our cause came to our aid and gave us their full support; Dennis Posadas, Ricky Rivera, Alex Villafania, and Pierre Galla. It’s just a few more hours to go before we unveil to the country and the world what the Philippine’s best can do, and the drama and suspense of this journey composed of many heroes will finally begin tonight. We Can Do It!

HERE WE GO

FREE YOURSELF

DARING TO DREAM

2 WEEKS TO GO …

11.30.08

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