Prof. Jeff L. Homeres, Research Coordinator of the College of Education, bagged the third place in the 2021 DOST-TAPI’s Regional Invention Contest and Exhibits.
The Regional Invention Contest and Exhibits or RICE is a nationwide activity that recognizes the indispensability of Filipino inventors in the landscape of national economic development through appropriate platforms especially under the new normal.
Prof. Homeres’ invention titled “Improvised Touch Remote Switch for Electrical Loads” under the Invention (Tuklas) Category was declared as the lone winner of the said category.
The “Improvised Touch Remote Switch for Electrical Loads” was the first patent granted to Eastern Visayas State University on January 29, 2020 by the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHIL).
The Department of Science and Technology- Technology Application and Promotion Institute (DOST-TAPI) initially evaluated the entries. There were two rounds of judging: the qualifying and final rounds.
In the qualifying round, the Board of Judges shortlisted the top five (5) entries per category with the highest score based on the judging criteria constituting the 80% of the final score: Novelty-25%, Commercial Viability-30%, Stage of Development and Cost-15%, Unique Value Proposition-5%, and Scientific/Technical Merits-5%.
In the final round, the remaining 20% was judged according to the following criteria:
Video presentation-15% and Mastery of the Subject-5%.
When asked how he started his passion in innovation, Prof. Homeres recalled that it started when the former VP-RDE of Eastern Visayas State University, Dr. Manuel Pacaña motivated and encouraged him to file his output in his Master’s Thesis for patent.
“It was Dr. Pacaña prodding that made me what I am today”, he further said.
