Justino R. Arboleda

President,
Coco Technologies Corporation

Mr Arboleda was born in Guinobatan Albay as the 9th of 13 children. Working his way through school, he was a consistent honour student, eventually winning a two year scholarship to the University of the Philippines. Whilst attending this university he was awarded a scholarship to Tokyo University of Education where he completed his Bachelorship and Master of Science in Agricultural Engineering. He went on to receive his PhD at Tsukuba University, Japan.

Mr Arboleda began Blackbeads Corporation, a successful semi-conductor exporter which currently employs 250 people. Leaving his brother to manage the company, Justino returned to academe as an instructor at Bicol College of Agriculture. Over 15 years he rose to become Dean, a position he held for 11 years, and University Vice-president for 2 years.

Moving back into industry, Mr Arboleda began Jukoben Enterprises and later Coco Technologies Corporation. This pioneering company assists coconut farmers by producing coconut fibre geotextiles which are used in bio-engineering construction in the Philippines.

Coco Technologies has gone on to win many national and international awards, including the Presidential Golden Shell Award and the Global Eco-tech Award from the World Expo in Aichi, Japan in 2005. Coco Tech won the World Challenge Contest for the Best Grassroots Project conducted by the BBC, Newsweek and Shell in 2005.