BagoSphere is a vocational training company that provides affordable and effective training programs specifically catered for out-of-school youths to gain access to high value jobs so that they can move out of poverty. We are based in Bago City, Negros Occidental, Philippines.
Our Vision
A world where every youth can pursue what they love, earn a good living and build a better future for the next generation
Our Mission
Empower youths to overcome poverty through sustainable youth development solutions
What do we do?
BagoSphere provides a unique combination of call-center specific, critical thinking and life skills courses for 2-months targeted at out-of-school youths in Bago City. BagoSphere also improves access to training by charging a small up-front down payment and postponing full course fee repayment in affordable monthly installments once the students have been employed.
Successful students gain employment with a call-center partner in nearby Bacolod City, which is ranked third in the list of most promising BPO hubs in the Philippines. The call center job provides youths with an income 4x higher than unskilled work, enabling them to save for pursuing professional and personal development goals.
About the Company
BagoSphere was started by Zhihan Lee, Ellwyn Tan and Ivan Lau in 2011. BagoSphere conducted a pilot with 14 Bago City youths that ran from July to November 2011 in cooperation with Teleperformance, a leading BPO company and assistance from the Bago City local government. From that pilot, 13 students passed the call center recruitment test and started employment in December 2011. 64% are still employed to date. Majority of the students has also been promoted to become supervisors. Since then, BagoSphere has developed a unique vocational curriculum based on inputs from call center experts and curriculum specialists (The Talent Society - Lara Dudley & Ayla Kremb) from Singapore and Philippines.
BagoSphere is the recipient of Singapore International Foundation’s Young Social Entrepreneurs Grant Program sponsored by Asia Philanthropic Ventures and an award winner of Start-up@Singapore’s Social Enterprise competition. BagoSphere is also incubated by Grameen Creative Labs @ National University of Singapore (NUS) and is supported by Kickstart Ventures, Co.Lab XChange, and the Small World Group Incubator (SWGI). BagoSphere is also working with Shujog, a non-for-profit based in Singapore to measure and audit our social impact.
