Evia Lifestyle Center, the south’s premiere lifestyle shopping and dining mecca, just added a new dimension to its approach to modern mall-going by opening an exciting new hub for inventive breakthroughs and learning – The University of the Philippines @Lab Innovation Hub.
The family of Vista Land Chairman Manny Villar and Senator Cynthia Villar, along with officers from the University of the Philippines (UP) recently launched this new Innovation Zone as the first phase of development for the upcoming UP Alabang Campus in Vista Alabang.
Evia Lifestyle Center currently houses this groundbreaking Innovation Zone and Incubator Hub that will, in the words of former Senate President Villar, assert UP’s role as “the most dynamic University and the leader in education in the country”. The hub, nicknamed UP @Lab (a play on words that simultaneously mean “ablaze , a futuristic hub <@Lab> and its location ) is designed to be the first spark that will initiate the academe and industry partnerships that UP aims to create by putting up a campus in Alabang.”
“UP @Lab is a dream brought to life by the Villars for UP’s student-locators because it brings us closer to accessing industry funding that makes our inventions and ideas a reality“, said Dr. Luis Sison, Project Leader of Diliman-based DOST-UP Enterprise and Innovation Hub.
“This first building block of UP Alabang allows us to solve issues that plague fledging start-ups, such as limited access to industry and business expertise that have hindered the progress of technology innovation and development in the country”, said Dr. Aura Matias, former Dean of the UP College of Engineering. “True to its name, UP @Lab shines as a beacon of hope for technology development in our country”, she added.
UP @Lab is located in Level B1 of the Evia Lifestyle Center. It is a fully-equipped innovation hub complete with four start-up offices, two meeting rooms, and an open workspace area for visiting locators. The hub will be run by the same team behind UP Diliman’s DOST-UP Enterprise Center as a starting point for eventual operations in UP.
The new UP Alabang campus in Vista Alabang’s upcoming University Town, will house two new tech-driven centers for innovation for the country’s premier university – the UP School of Technology Entrepreneurship, and the UP Alabang Enterprise Center. The campus complex will be co-developed by UP and Vista Land as part of a donation and development agreement signed last June by university officials and the Villar Family. The Villars donated five hectares of land in the upcoming University Town of Vista Land’s “communicity” development Vista Alabang in Daang Hari. The agreement also includes a donation of PHP 300M worth of buildings and equipment to be used in the creation of the campus.
Aside from becoming the latest education hub, Evia Lifestyle Center continues to provide an impressive array of choices for shopping at Vista Group’s concept stores – AllElectrics and AllToys, global fashion brands like H&M and Uniqlo, local favorite go-to stores like Bench and Bayo and shoe stores such as Res Toe Run and Payless ShoeSource. Various dining options are also available at favorite resto brands located at the Piazza like Mama Lou’s, Merlion Cuisine, Mesa, and TGI Fridays. Shoppers can also enjoy a unique dining experience at Another Story, a place that transports one to the realm of imagination and make-believe. Evia Lifestyle Center is also home to Vista Cinemas, which boasts of its MX4D and Dolby ATMOS technologies, and its state-of-the-art VIP Theater.