DABAWENYO'S POTENTIAL. Rico Mok, Poplar's chief technical officer and co-founder, says he believes in the intelligence and passion displayed by the Dabawenyos when it comes to work. In an interview in Davao City on Thursday (March 31, 2022), Mok describes Dabawenyos as good team players who can contribute a lot to the information and communications technology sector. (PNA photo by Che Palicte)
DAVAO CITY – An official of a tech-enabled Silicon Valley-based property management company said Thursday that Dabawenyos have huge potentials to contribute to the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector.
In an interview, Rico Mok, chief technology officer (CTO) and co-founder, said he believes the potential of Dabawenyos would fit in the sector as they are on the lookout for an additional 300 fresh local talents.
The company has recently secured USD53 million in Series B funding and aims to double its Philippine team in line with broadening its scope of services.
"This is open to anyone - fresh graduates, people with 10-15 years in the industry. Regardless of age, they can work with us," Mok said.
At Silicon Valley, Mok said they need talents in all sorts of fields – from customer service to engineering talents.
"We started as a customer service, but as we developed the team, we found that the talent here is very diverse, it’s not just concentrated to traditional voice or non-voice work," he said.
Mok said he is impressed with the passion and potential of local talents, based on his experience working with some Dabawenyo computer engineers.
"They were very impressive. I have seen as good, if not, even better, in some sense than our team in the Silicon Valley, so we decided to start our team here as well," Mok said.
He said working with Dabawenyos made him realize that their team was developing the best product that they have ever developed.
"The fact that we were able to service thousands of customers gave our investors even more confidence to further invest in Davao City," Mok said.
Poplar's PHteam serves as its supporting arm, growing from a handful of 25 employees in 2016 to its current team of 244.
Consisting of highly skilled problem solvers, he said they helped launch Poplar's ground-breaking products, achieve a national brand footprint in the United States, and facilitate over USD200 million in rent volume.
With plans of rapid expansion to develop more innovative products and serve more market areas, Mok said they expect to continue augmenting their workforce in the city and other regional areas. (PNA)
