Pinoys Invented the World’s First iTV

Tell me one thing in your house that was invented by a Filipino (sans the furniture and other tricklets, okey? Just the major ones)? Hard? Point to me a very creative invention that you can say that’s purely Pinoy? Difficult?

If you use iPOD, that’s an American invention. Everything in our house right now are inventions of either Americans, Japanese, Swiss, even Koreans. But, nothing, nothing novelle enough to be considered Pinoy.

That, my friends will change as a group of young Pinoy mavericks launched the world’s first ever iTV. Yes, they kicked Steve Jobs in the butt with this very inventive and very innovative product.

Last night, I was one of about seventy Filipinos who witnessed the unveiling of the Ilumina, the world’s first ever iTV. For non-teckies, an LCD iTV is actually a television with internet and computing power. It’s what we call a “convergence” product because it synchronizes everything essential in our life in just one gadget.

Let me illuminate. Look at your sala. It has a television set, a DVD player, probably an iPOD player and a corner where you keep your personal computer. Probably, you also have a web cam and your PC would probably have its own DSL connection and you probably have speakers and a linksys router to boot.

Clutter? Space? Yes. Your room probably is as messy as you once lived in your college dorm.

With the Ilumina, my friends, you’re only talking about just ONE gadget with everything.

Let me paraphrase Pinoy Chief Inoventor Brian Quebengco and let him describe what his group of Filipino Industrial and IT designers created:

” The Ilumina”, he told a stunned audience last night at the basement of Fullybooked store at Bonifacio High Street last 30 November 2008, ” is a television set with a brain power of a personal computer”.

” It contains a flat-screen LCD display, a hard drive and a multimedia center that allows one to watch movies, listen to their favorite music, watch cable or free television programs and surf the web–all at the same time. With Ilumina, you don’t have to booth up when you use both the television and internet modes. You just flick the switch and you have a technological delight that is purely Filipino.”

This is the very first iTV ever invented by anyone in the world. This “inovention” (a term invented by Brian’s group which is the synthesis of “invention” and “innovation”) showcases the Filipino’s ingenuity and brilliance in industrial design.

” With our knowledge, no body has come up with this before. “We want to prove to the world that Filipinos can do it—that we stand a chance in the electronic industry and we can even excel in it!” beamed Brian as he addresses the first group of Filipinos who witnessed last night’s historic unveiling of a technological wonder.

Filipinos should be proud of what these group of innovators did. Lacking in money but never in creativity, the Inovent group composed of industrial designers and IT designers from different schools (UP, Ateneo and La Salle) achieved the impossible. ” We Filipinos can conquer the world”, adds Brian as he watches with pride the Ilumina TV.

More on this group in subsequent posts… Next, I’ll tell you how Brian’s group started the Ilumina and how they are now creating technological wonders that aims to astound not only Filipinos but the world!