Geek gives back: IT whiz Winston Damarillo shares his game plan for the country

He reached the peak of success at an early age — graduating from college at 19, working for one of the biggest technology companies in Silicon Valley at 20, establishing his own company at 30 and having his software bought by IBM at 35.

Yet Winston Damarillo is still as enthusiastic as he was in his younger years.

"You know, working with the younger ones, it's like [an] adrenaline boost. It makes you excited about doing what you do every day," Damarillo, now 44, said.

Named one of the Young Global Leaders by the Geneva-based World Economic Forum (WEF) in 2010, Damarillo has been active in helping improve the country's economic growth, especially in the field of information technology (IT).

But while he had a good life in Silicon Valley, said Damarillo, he reached a turning point at 35.

"[T]hat was when I realized that a lot more Filipinos can do it. That’s when I started spending more time to come back in the Philippines," he said.

Though he is still based in Los Angles, Damarillo said he spends about 60 percent of his time in the Philippines and other countries in Asia seeking partnerships and promoting business opportunities in the Philippines.

"The World Economic Forum opened my eyes that I can help the country more by collaborating, you know, by going around the world and bring what works around the world to the Philippines," he said.

DevCon Philippines

In 2009, Damarillo founded Developers Connect Philippines, Inc. (DevCon), a foundation that provides assistance to IT students, educators, professionals and enthusiasts through free conferences, trainings and outreach programs.

“DevCon is about geeks helping geeks. We train about 10,000 IT students every year to be in the IT business. Tapos we also go around schools, siguro mga two to three hundred schools a year, and teach the kids how to become geeks,” Damarillo said with a laugh.

Damarillo is also providing assistance to the Filipino members of the Young Global Shapers (YGS), the youth arm of the World Economic Forum, in setting up various projects in the country, not to mention running seven IT companies which he has all founded.

He also serves as the country's representative to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and currently chairs the Innovation Committee of APEC's Policy Partnership on Science, Technology and Innovation (PPSTI).

Starting out

The journey to fame and success had not been a smooth sailing one for Damarillo.

He was a senior in high school when his family lost their logging business.

“Alam mo kung ano yung mas mahirap sa mahirap? Yung dati kang mayaman! My family was rich when I was young, pero nung 4th year high school ako, we lost it all,” Damarillo recounted.

And so Damarillo, then 16 and about to enter De La Salle University (DLSU), was left with no course but to work hard for his allowance.

“I had to go to La Salle poor. I’ve seen my dad saying, 'Naku, everything we worked hard for is gone.' So, you know, I learned to work hard early. Nagbebenta ako ng mga bulldozer parts and some electronic parts, because I knew how to do them,” Damarillo said. At 19, he graduated from DLSU with a bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering.

Reaching the peak of success

But even before he graduated, Damarillo had his goal set — to work in one of the biggest companies in Silicon Valley in San Francisco, California.

“I always wanted to be in Silicon Valley, so at 19 I moved. When I went to the States, sabi ko, I’m not gonna compromise. I’m only gonna work for IBM, Microsoft or Intel,” he said.

For a year, he had to live in a cramped room while looking for a job.

“For one year, I had to sleep on a couch. It was not all easy, but it was not that hard either. It’s just, you know, things never work right away, but you don’t have to feel sorry for yourself,” Damarillo said.

He succeeded getting hired at Intel, where he became the one of company's most successful venture capitalists, having led a majority of his investments to successful initial public offerings (IPOs).

But at 30 he felt the need to establish his own company.

“Since I was young, I was really interested in entrepreneuship. I always dreamed of building my own company. I always wanted to work for myself,” Damarillo said.

In 2001, he founded his own open-source software company, Gluecode. Four years later, he sold it to IBM.

“Since it [Gluecode] was my creation, I want to make it big. IBM had the ability to make it grow and give it to as many people as possible. It is now part of their product line, and my first five engineers, each of them is now making $200 million a year with IBM,” Damarillo shared.

Up to now, Gluecode remains the only Filipino-made software bought by IBM.

Following the success of Gluecode, Damarillo created two more software products he later sold to bigger IT companies — Logicblaze, sold to Irish company IONA Technologies in 2007, and Webtide, sold to US-based Intalio Inc. in 2009.

Right now, Damarillo, manages seven IT companies, including Exist Global, an award-winning enterprise software development; Morphlabs, Inc., a cloud solutions computing software with operations in the US, Japan, Singapore and Philippines; and Acaleph, which is considered Asia's first digital storage solution.

Philippines as next project

Damarillo said his next big project is to promote the country's “creative economy.”

“Life’s been good, I’ve been blessed with good business. But now, I'm thinking more for the country rather than for myself,” Damarillo said.

“You know what can we become really good at? We’re really good at the creative stuff. So, to me, my next area of interest is to bring the creative economy here. Alam mo, sayang lang wala tayong Broadway dito. We have a lot of singers and entertainers. Wala tayong arts studios, we have a lot of artists. We're good at movies, shows, performing arts, creative arts, architecture, food, fashion, even yung mga cottage industries or home-based businesses—gusto ko rin buhayin yan,” he said, beaming with excitement.

Though he did not elaborate, Damarillo said he is now “at work” to turn this vision into a reality.

“We can be the capital of the entire ASEAN for that [creative economy],” he said.

And for the youth, Damarillo has this to say:

“It's really important to be an entrepreneur. Kahit hindi ka magtayo agad ng sarili mong business but just to have the entrepreneurial mindset na kung hindi naituro sa'kin or kung hindi ko alam, aalamin ko. Try to innovate, discover better ways of running things, don't be afraid of trial and error. Own your destiny. Success and failure is up to you. Lahat ng effort na ibibigay mo, babalik sa'yo yun.”  — JDS/BM, GMA News