About

Jay Fajardo

Jay is a seasoned tech entrepreneur who is an ardent advocate of innovation from the grass roots. He has over 35 years in the ICT field and extensive P&L experience, technology research & development, financial analysis, and operations management.

He is currently founder and CEO of Ruby development shop PROUDCLOUD, the founder and CEO of LAUNCHGARAGE, an innovation hub based in Manila, and the Chief Strategy Officer of Jojo Crowdshipping, an emerging B2C and B2B logistics platform.

In 2002, he founded Wi-Fi hotspot network Airborne Access, which was acquired by PLDT in 2008.

Holding roles as director, advisor, and mentor in various tech startups in Manila, Jay is considered to be one of the pioneers and thought leaders of the Philippines’ tech startup scene. Jay regularly speaks at local and international forums on the South East Asian startup ecosystem such as the Harvard Asia Business Conference in Boston, with the Global Innovation Gathering at the annual re:publica conference in Berlin, and regional startup conferences in Asia.

Founder and CEO/CTO at PROUDCLOUD • CEO at Launchgarage • CSO at Jojo Crowdshipping • CEO at Gameworks

MANILA, PHILIPPINES

[email protected]

Experience

JOJO CROWDSHIPPING SEP 1, 2018 - PRESENT

CHIEF STRATEGY OFFICER

MANILA

Jojo is a two-sided app based marketplace that connects B2C and B2B customers with a community of couriers that can deliver packages in Metro Manila and surrounding provinces. The app is available for both iOS and Android and can be downloaded from myjojo.com.

Reporting directly to the Chief Executive Officer, Jay assists with developing, communicating, executing, and sustaining the company’s strategic initiatives. He helped materialise the collective vision and goals of the CEO, the board, and the key officers, into actual and actionable milestones, strategies, and contingencies to help achieve successful outcomes. In line with this, Jay was responsible for formalizing the company’s strategic-planning processes, leading the development of the strategy, translating it for people across functions and business units, drive organizational change forging new working relationships and synergies across the organization, and establishing greater transparency and accountability for those people carrying out the company’s strategy. In line with his role as CSO, Jay strives to be continuously attuned to situations that required agile shifts in strategic or tactical direction, alerting the key management team to these situations, orchestrate sensible analysis, and rally them to respond in an effective way.

Jay is also responsible for:

Leading the development of the strategic plan/framework for the organization, and the detailed current year operating plan, while adhering to direction set by the CEO and Board of Directors. This includes formalizing and leading the strategic planning process, focusing on long term trends and outlook, and competitive intelligence.

Facilitating the execution of the strategy by working collaboratively with the other Executive Team members and ensuring that the strategy is communicated and easily understood by all throughout the organization. Ensuring that strategic actions are completed at various levels to achieve desired results.

Ensuring that appropriate metrics are in place to measure performance and progress towards strategic goals.

Acting as a key advisor to Chief Executive Officer on critical changes in the competitive landscape, global marketplace and external business environment

Engaging external business and industry experts to learn and influence business strategies, constantly remaining alert and forward-thinking about opportunities and risks in the industry.

Leading the development and implementation of consistent practices, strategic frameworks across the company.

Overseeing the development and implementation of a knowledge management infrastructure and leads in the management of organizational knowledge as a strategic asset to further the organization’s goals.

Leading the organization’s approach to measurement and evaluation with a focus on the creation of an organizational dashboard for impact and organizational effectiveness

Recommending and implementing productivity and communications technology, tools, and systems that will promote organization wide collaboration, task management, transparency, and knowledge sharing.

In addition to the above, the Jay also provides his technology expertise and knowledge to assist and advise colleagues in specific concerns that include:

Corporate matters that may include investor relations, fund raising strategies, equity structure, and corporate jurisdiction options.

Market scanning/analysis, and corresponding strategies through both traditional and digital media.

Product Market Fit determination, iterative product development, usability and usage analytics, and feature-set recommendation and rationalisation.

Possible strategies that will employ the Blockchain or other Distributed Ledger Technologies, for both fundraising via an ICO, and employing these technologies as part of the product's underlying transaction mechanism, asset storage, or customer payment infrastructure.

Recommend best practices, tools, and technologies that may be used throughout the product design, build, test, and feedback phases. This will include agile project management approaches that will insure an efficient allocation of resources and more accurate release ship estimates.

Recommend best practices, tools, and workflow on the architecture and development environment to reduce the occurrence of technical debt, produce readable and an easily transferrable code base, provide pro-active error reporting, and automated code testing prior to production releases.

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GAMEWORKS NOV 1, 2018 - PRESENT

CEO

MANILA

Gameworks is a blockchain based platform that provides a tokenised gaming ecosystem to game developers and publishers. With its 4 key modules; Gamecentral (gamecentral.gameworks.io), GWX Wallet (gwxwallet.com), GWX Token Depot (depot.gameworks.io), and the Gameworks Service Stack (GSS) API, the platform makes use of the GWX token to drive the economic flow between publishers, games, merchants, and players.

At Gameworks, Jay is responsible for:

Designed and created the business model and engineering architecture powering the entire Gameworks ecosystem.

Designed and executed the Private Sale purchase and disbursment infrastructure of the GWX token to certified early buyers of the GWX token using the Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Nem cryptocurrencies.

Together with the Chief Legal Officer, helped develop and execute the legal compliance roadmap for the various Gameworks business units and jurisdictions with regards to gaming and cryptocurrency.

PROUDCLOUD FEB 2009 - PRESENT

FOUNDER and CEO

MANILA

PROUDCLOUD is a full stack development firm that has been building web and mobile technologies for global startups, medium, and large enterprises since 2009. It's currently participating in the emerging machine economy by expanding its work to the internet of things, machine learning, and data driven platforms. The company serves clients in the United States, Canada, Hong Kong, Australia, and the Philippines. As founder and CEO, Jay has successfully built an evolving agile development team and process that established the company as the country's leading Ruby on Rails development firm. Through the years, the company's technology stack has expanded to Javascript technologies (such as Node.js, Angular, React, Vue), NoSQL, Android/iOS development, IOT and embedded systems, machine learning, and the blockchain.

Jay is also responsible for:

implementing the company's agile workflow that follows a hybrid SCRUM/XP methodology, pair programming, peer code reviews, automated testing and continuous integration, and automated deployment;

developing a full stack workforce that produces engineers that can overlap, in varying degrees, their front-end development, back-end development, ui/ux design, and devops competencies;

continuous training and development for the company's human resources in all departments, including production operations, finance, administrative, and the rest of the organization;

encourages the active participation of the company in the technology and startup communities such as Startup Weekend, JSConf Manila, RubyConf Manila, and other communities, resulting in a high brand equity for the company in these circles.

MEDIFI AUG 2014 - PRESENT

Co-FOUNDER and CTO

MANILA, SAN FRANSCISCO

MEDIFI is a HIPPAA compliant, WebRTC based, telehealth platform that connects patients with physicians globally, through video consultations, and instant messaging. The platform also includes a DICOM imaging manager/viewer, digital prescriptions, and a personal medical journal.

As the CTO of MEDIFI, Jay is responsible for,

building the company's engineering team to its current size of 8 developers and ui/ux designers support the product development roadmap;

designing the architecture and technology stack for the MVP and current version of the platform that is built on Ruby on Rails, Javascript, MongoDB, WebRTC, and utilizes Amazon EC2/S3 for staging and production deployments;

designing and currently leading the development of the paltform's next iteration which will heavily be designed to support a microservices architecture and migration towards a more robust WebRTC and signalling implementation, in order to properly scale;

play a major role in the agile product development path, including feature design scheduling, and roll out;

represented the company in various tech startup and health tech conventions, events, and pitching events around the world, selected as an Angel's Choice awardee at the 2015 Websummit in Dublin, Ireland, and winning best startup at the 2016 APEC O2O Forum in Lima, Peru.

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LAUNCHGARAGE APRIL 2016 - PRESENT

Co-FOUNDER and CEO

MANILA

Launchgarage is an accelerator and tech innovation hub in Manila that provides a venue for open collaboration, knowledge sharing, events, acceleration, and a landing pad for global startups and investors that connect with the Philippine startup ecosystem. With its key relationships with global innovation hubs such as Plug and Play in Silicon Valley, Launchgarage is also sought after by local innovation drivers such as UP Enterprise UPSCALE, the Department of Trade and Industry, the Department of ICT, and the Department of Science and Technology, for guidance and support.

Launchgarage has over 28 tech startups with an aggregate total valuation of US$61.2M under its advisory portfolio, and has guided a good number of these startups by connecting them with strategic partners, investors, and mentors. It also serves as innovation advisors to number of large corporate partners through its Corporate Innovation Programs.

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AIRBORNE ACCESS 2002 - 2008

FOUNDER and CEO

MANILA

Jay established the country’s first Wi-Fi hotspot operator eventually becoming the largest and most popular Wi-Fi network in the Philippines with over 600 hotspots throughout the country. While leading and growing the company from a management perspective, he also played the lead role in developing the product and brand as well as the technology architecture.

As CEO, Jays role was to define the company’s vision, drive product development, act as chief strategist, while bearing P&L responsibilities.

Developed the company’s overall business plan encompassing Financial, Technological, Marketing, and Sales/Distribution concerns.

Developed the core technologies to support a secure and centralized authentication of subscribers through captive portal technology and RADIUS AAA.

Built and trained a team of engineers to support the company’s development and network management requirements in relation to the wireless hotspot business model.

Organized and directed the company’s management team through the start-up and succeeding day-to-day concerns.

Successfully initiated strategic partnerships with various wireless related firms to support the company’s network deployment as well as implement joint marketing activities and co-branding.

Successfully deployed over 600 wireless hotspots and hotzones around the country.

Expanded Wi-Fi hotspot operations to Nigeria, Thailand, and New Zealand.

Implemented Voice over IP capabilities over the entire network through Wi-Fi SIP phones and dual mode handsets.

Successfully established the company as a white label solutions provider for the country’s major carriers including PLDT, SMART, BayanTel, and Eastern Telecoms.

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PACIFIC SUN (ASIA), LTD. JUL 2000 - APR 2002

MANAGING DIRECTOR

MANILA, HO CHI MINH CITY, BANGKOK

As Managing Director of Pacific Sun, Jay was in charge of building the company’s wholesale Voice-over-IP network with points-of-presence in Manila, Thailand, and Vietnam. He designed and implemented the company’s VOIP network operations that included redundant high speed IP links and fault tolerant data centers in Bangkok, Manila, and other remote sites throughout Asia. Jay also developed and executed the company’s business processes which included marketing strategies, billing and collection systems, QOS, and network operations.

He also established strategic relationships with wholesale long distance carriers and telcos in the Philippines, Japan, and the United States. During his stint at Pacific Sun, the company’s VOIP network supported millions of long distance minutes per month.

GLOBAL DIRECT ACCESS JUNE 1998 - JULY 2000

COO/CTO

MANILA, HO CHI MINH CITY

At GDA, Fajardo designed and implemented the company’s VOIP network, data center, and business processes. The company’s VOIP network supported an average of 3 million minutes of long distance voice traffic per month, into Vietnam.

BUSINESSWORLD ONLINE AUGUST 1995 - JUNE 1998

TECHNOLOGY DIRECTOR

MANILA

Jay played a key role in developing and publishing what was to be the country’s first newspaper to establish a presence on the web.

Aside from forming the technology foundation of the new media company, he developed various web based applications that would be integrated into the core web site, including a search engine of the newspaper archives and pioneered the use of Java and Javascript.

He also led the orientation and implementation team for the Press Foundation of Asia’s NETCENTER project, a UNDP funded, internet based network of press organizations throughout Asia. He conducted on-site training, orientation, and execution of digital journalism at the various member press institutes in Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Kathmandu, New Delhi, and Dhaka, linking them to the NETCENTER network hub in Manila.

As Technology Director, Jay was also responsible for:

directing the network and technology architecture that would support the organization's daily web publishing operations, and the peripheral digital products that would emerge over the life the company;

designed, developed, and implemented CODEX, the web search engine for the Businessworld online archives;

SYNTHESYS 1991 - AUGUST 1995

FOUNDER and PRESIDENT

MANILA

As president and lead software engineer at Synthesys, Fajardo and his team served the bespoke IT applications requirements of various companies in the Philippines which included, Compania de Filipinas (TABACALERA), and Unilever.

IGUE SYSTEMS 1989 - AUGUST 1991

Co-FOUNDER and SOFTWARE ENGINEER

MANILA

IGUE Systems was an early oursourced software engineering company that primarily support software development and engineering companies in Japan.

At Igue Systems, Fajardo was part of a team that developed

the Basic Interpreter for the SHARP’s pocket computer platform;
platform that tracked the migratory behavior of Pawikan sea turtles for the the DENR.

ATLAS MINING & DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION 1987 - 1988

SOFTWARE ENGINEER

MANILA

As a member of the company’s IT group, Fajardo migrated the group’s entire software development and database environment from legacy Cobol to the xBase platform. His systems development work included applications to support the company’s General Ledger, Accounts Payable, and Accounts Receivable processing.

Jay also headed a team that implemented an early wireless data communications network using Single Side Band frequencies connecting the company’s offices in Makati, Masbate, and Cebu.

Other Highlights

Education

B.S. Commerce, Major in Business Management
DE LA SALLE UNIVERSITY, MANILA

Languages

Expert fluency in spoken and written ENGLISH

Native fluency in spoken and written FILIPINO (Tagalog)

Intermediate proficiency in spoken and written SPANISH

Elementary proficiency in spoken THAI

Jay regularly speaks at

re:publica (Berlin)
2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018

Asia-Pacific Week (Berlin)
2015, 2016, 2017, 2018

Geeks on a Beach (Philippines)
2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016

Organizational Affiliations

Board of Advisors 2018 SXSW Accelerator (Austin)

Board Member, Global Innovation Gathering e.V. (Berlin)

Member, StartHub AsiaBerlin 2016, 2017, 2018

Past President, Rotary Club of the Makati Business District, D-3830 for the RY 2015-2016

Mentor, Founders Institute Manila

Advisory Board Roles

Indigo Research AI

Appsolutely
Loyalcoin
Acudeen
Mober
Social Light, Inc.

UPSTART The Game
Taxumo

Athletics

NAUI Certified Scuba Diver since 1992

Center Half, Left Winger, Superbad FC in the Weekend Futbol League

Recreational Boxing and Badminton