La French Tech Manila: Bridging the French and Philippine Innovation Ecosystems

La French Tech Manila is part of the larger La French Tech organization supported by the French government  to support French startups and innovation ecosystems around the world. La French Tech Manila provides a platform for French entrepreneurs and startups to connect with each other, as well as with local investors, business leaders, and other stakeholders in the Philippine startup ecosystem. The community also organizes events and activities aimed at promoting innovation, entrepreneurship, and collaboration between France and the Philippines. La French Tech currently has 67 chapters worldwide. With that, why don’t you join me in learning more about La French Tech Manila with its Vice President, Thomas Krasnovsky.

How would you describe your career journey and why?  

My career journey has been an adventure. I call it this because nothing is for certain and anything can happen at any moment in time. I started with a background in entrepreneurship. I liked the versatility of learning different things when starting a business. I eventually left my country and followed a business opportunity I found in the Philippines. I started working at a big corporation called Linde, a world leader in industrial gas. Within this job, I turned to tech and was able to discover a lot of things about the tech side of businesses. Soon after that, I joined La French Tech Manila and this led me to join a job in a fintech startup as a product manager. Today, my future involves setting up my own company at some point in time. For me, starting a company entails solving world problems using your own solutions.

What made you become passionate about startups and how does that apply now?

There are several things that made me interested in the startup world. Firstly would be the way startups work. They are still growing and vulnerable to a lot of factors. One day a startup could do great, the next it could struggle. Because of this, founders are challenged to think of new and more effective ways to treat both old and new challenges that come their way. It’s all about agility and balancing long term vision with short term goals. Second, I like how startups are always challenging the status quo. There are new problems and new solutions. Even with old problems, startups are still able to provide new solutions. Change is continuous. It’s about looking at the same things through a new lens. For all these reasons, I think this is what is meant for me and this is what I am passionate about.

How does La French Tech Manila support the growth of the French and Filipino startup ecosystems?

La French Tech is an initiative initiated by the French government. Our main goal is to promote French technology around the world. We are trying to solve world problems using French technology. We are enabling people in France to create their own startups to solve their own problems. Today, we have 67 French tech entities outside of France, amongst them is French Tech Manila. We aim for French startups to expand into the Philippine market if they would want to. We also enable local talents to travel to France and work with local startups. Also, we are currently promoting values, among the most notable of which are the positive impact we can have on the environment. We want to be part of the efforts in diminishing climate change. We are also fighting for gender equality and inclusion.

La French Tech Manila aims at informing actors about our ecosystem. We want to raise awareness about what La French Tech Manila is all about, the market, the ecosystem, and our network. We want to share knowledge and be the point of contact of clients who are interested in French technology. At the same time, we also want to be the point of contact of locals who want to go abroad and partner with French tech startups. We also provide our network with potential opportunities in the market.

Can you share any success stories or notable achievements of La French Tech Manila since its establishment?

From 2016-2019, we were actually called French Tech Philippines. We recently got a new label and now we are called La French Tech Manila. Last year, we co-organized a pitch competition event together with the French Chamber of Commerce. We had both French and Philippine startups that were competing in two different categories and promoting and pitching their solutions. What made this special was that, before the event, we connected with some CEOs and marketing heads and asked them to mentor the startups that were going to participate in the competition. We connect people together and enable them to make partnerships with each other. We are hoping to have another pitch competition very soon.

What are some upcoming initiatives or projects that La French Tech Manila is currently working on?

As I mentioned, we want to be the first point of contact for aspiring French business owners who come to the Philippines. As such, we put in a place a guide that informs them what to look for when they first arrive, what they need to do to set up their own businesses here, and rules and regulations. We will be releasing this guide to our network through social media so that everyone has access to this. We will definitely be having events around the topics of green-tech and Agri-tech. We will be raising awareness around this topic and gathering actors and entities around these fields to try and create synergies here.

Thomas Krasnovsky is the Vice President of La French Tech Manila. He has extensive experience in the fields of project management, leadership, Robotic Process Automation and process movement, economics, and finance. La French Tech Manila’s mission is to help French startups and entrepreneurs expand into the Philippines, and to contribute to the growth and development of the Philippine startup ecosystem as a whole. As Vice President of La French Tech Manila, Thomas is committed to promoting and connecting French technology with the Philippine startup ecosystem.

Visit www.techshake.asia if you would like to know and connect more with La French Tech Manila.