During the Philippine Startup Week organized by the Department of Science and Technology in Ortigas Center, Pasig City last Tuesday, Marx Melencio, 39, was the final presenter among the 15 startup research grantees of the Philippine Council for Industry, Energy, and Emerging Technology Research and Development .
In 2003, Marx, then 23, was a victim of a presumed random gun attack in Cubao, Quezon City. A Mathematics graduate from the University of the Philippines-Diliman, he and high-school sweetheart Cherry had just built their own family.He was shot twice. The first bullet hit him three millimeters from his heart, while the second bullet missed his brain by two millimeters.
But he said his near-death experience gave birth to an idea to develop a technology that offers more independence to the blind. In 2016, VISION AI Labs was launched as the company’s technology research and development laboratory.