RAID THE FRIDGE: Engage

Did you know — while mobile telephony is steadily becoming commonplace even in the poorest of nations, “….3.9 billion people — 53% of the world’s population — will still be offline at the end of 2016.” This, according to the “State of Broadband Report 2016” released by the Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development, a joint initiative by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to promote Internet access.

And did you know — 80% of Filipinos are not ever/always online. 

What does this mean? For one, startups also need to think beyond smartphone apps and find concrete ways to interact with Filipinos who do not have regular internet access.

And is there even an easy and affordable way to engage offline Filipinos for marketing and engagement objectives?

The good news: there is a way. Our speaker this month — Ravi Agarwal, CEO and Founder at engageSPARK (www.engagespark.com) — is eager to share their technologies and learnings after providing self-service communication and marketing tools to clients (i.e. governments, non-profits, corporates) looking to extend their reach and impact to anyone owning a mobile phone.

So, do come over on June 29th: get ready to raid our fridge (that’s full of beers), and to engage our speaker. It'll be awesome to hang out with you over beers!

See you,
The Kickstart Team

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About the Speaker

RAVI AGARWAL
Founder & CEO, engageSPARK; Angel Investor

Ravi is a serial entrepreneur who previously founded three companies in Boston, two of which have had exits: today, they employ over 3,000 people and one is public (NASDAQ:EIGI). Ravi has invested in several companies as an angel investor in the US and Asia, and is also a Limited Partner in 500 Startups.

Many moons ago, he was chosen by Entrepreneur Magazine in their "3rd Annual 10 under 30" — top 10 business people under the age of 30 years old. He is co-inventor of a US Patent on Email security, patent #8,566,938.

In 2011, he volunteered with Grameen Foundation in Ghana and Uganda working on mHealth and mAgriculture programs. Based on market gaps he saw, he then co-founded engageSPARK, a social enterprise based in Cebu, Philippines, to help organizations of all sizes interact with anyone via any phone using Automated Voice Calls, two-way SMS, and Facebook Messenger - at scale. engageSPARK has been used in 130+ countries and includes customers such as Convergys, Facebook, Google, and UNICEF. 

engageSPARK has recently raised funding from 500 Startups, 500 Durians, Kickstart Ventures, Wavemaker Partners, and xchange.ph, a Manila-based impact investor.