The Cooperative Insurance System of the Philippines (1CISP) has launched three groundbreaking projects to redefine the way cooperatives do business and to entice more young clients to be part of cooperatives.
The first cooperative pitch fest is hosted by 1CISP in partnership with New City Commercial Center Mall and Ateneo De Davao University.
This pitch fest is called Coop Kicks that sought to give young innovators and aspiring entrepreneurs a venue to pitch their ideas on cooperative ventures.
“We believe in the youth, the leaders of today are the youth, let us believe in them and give them a break to help us build a more a prosperous country,” said Roy S. Miclat, president of 1CISP during a press forum held at The Royal Madaya Hotel on Wednesday.
The pitch fest will be on October 26-27 at Ateneo De Davao University the selected 40 teams will undergo training and workshop to hone their ideas which will be on November 9-10 and 16-17 and the demo pitch will be on November 24.
Winners of the pitch fest will be coached and trained by Ateneo Techno Hub and co-supervised by the Model Cooperative Network (MCN).
Miclat said that the team must be composed of three to five persons with one member aging 35 years old.
“The grand pitching will be on December 1 because we would like to celebrate with our partner, 40 years of NCCC. Celebrating the 40 years with the youth of Davao pitching the projects for cooperatives,” he said.
The grand pitch will be held at NCCC Mall Buhangin.
The winners from Mindanao, Visayas and Luzon pitch fest will compete on the national pitching competition which will be on April 2019 that will coincide the general assembly of 1CISP. That competition will decide the national winner.
He said they will accept products, services, applications or anything that can support work with communities and cooperatives.
He added that anyone can pitch even if he or she is not a member of a cooperative but once the project is funded they must join the cooperative that is funding their project.
“1CISP is committing at least 500,000 for this project in Mindanao alone for the grand prize winner,” he said.
Another project launched is1Koop Leaders Academy. This project will be heavy on management and human resource function. This will be spearheaded of 1CISP and will be soon become an academy which will be owned by cooperatives.
“Leaders of cooperatives should not only be political leaders (political leaders can generate people) but should be entrepreneurs also,” he said.
He added that the entrepreneurship should also be a skill of the board of directors and top management of the cooperative.
The third project is 1KoopMart, 1CISP again partnered with retail giant NCCC to come up with the country’s first-ever cooperative sari-sari store chain.
1KoopMart will provide cooperatives with a regular outlet for their products. Another unique thing about this 1KoopMart is that it will allow online orders with deliveries done by motorcycle-riding cooperative collectors.
1KoopMart stores will also act as financial intermediaries, offering bills payment, ATM services, ticket sales, food/parcel delivery, and more.
With the NCCC online sales catalog, the 1KoopMart stores will act as a mall extension for grocery and department store products. There is also a plan to set up a lay-away payment system through cooperatives for appliances and gadgets, and when customers have completed the payments, they can get the products in the stores.
“Our aim for 2018 and beyond is to elevate cooperatives and make them known for what they really are–an important pillar in national development,” he said.
In essence, 1KoopMart is a bank, a grocery, department store, appliance and gadget store, and clothing store in one. Although still in the design development stage, the first 1KoopMart stores are expected to be constructed next year.
“The launch of these three projects is only the beginning of more things to come for 1CISP and its partner cooperatives,” he revealed.
1CISP is the leading insurance cooperative in the Philippines and the go-to organization for the protection needs of its cooperative members. 1CISP has been in operation for 44 years and has grown to having over 2,000 cooperative members and insuring around 700,000 individuals annually.
