WINSTON Damarillo, a former venture capitalist working at Intel Capital, is set to open more companies in the Philippines that would be involved in open source software development.
Damarillo is currently running a company called Exist engaged in open source software development. Currently its chairman since its inception in 2001, the company has reported a profitable operation, growing at over 100 percent annually. It currently has two operations in the Philippines: one in Ortigas in Pasig City and another in Cebu City. The company runs an office in Los Angeles.
Last year, Damarillo became a “celebrity” in the US open source community after he sold Gluecode, a company he co-founded, to IBM for less than 100 million dollars. Gluecode develops open source application servers. He eventually used the money to set up an incubator firm for open source projects called Simula Labs. “Simula” is a Filipino word for beginning, and is used in this context to refer to startups.
A believer in Filipino software engineering talent, Damarillo revealed that Filipino software engineers in the Philippines account for much of the open source development work done in his company.
“We have been building our software in the Philippines,” Damarillo, who was in Manila for a visit, told INQ7.net.
Hoping to reverse the ongoing brain drain in the software industry by sourcing the open source software development jobs in the Philippines, Damarillo said that he is also bringing in open source software experts to train Filipino software engineers in the country.
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