“Sinag” (Filipino word that means sunlight), Philippines’ representative to World Solar Challenge held last October 21-28, 2007 in Australia. Sinag finished the challenge class at 12th place according to the final tally. There are 21 participants from different countries for Challenge Class. This is the first time that Philippines had a representative.

Sinag is a solar powered car. Yup! You read it right, this is another proof of Filipino ingenuity.

The SINAG Solar Car was proudly designed and built from scratch in a record time of less than a year by students from De La Salle University –Manila with the support of Ford Group Philippines, Motolite, Philippine Airlines, San Miguel Corporation, Pilipinas Shell, SunPower, U-Freight, and Ventus. The project is also supported by Aurora, Cabrera Lavadia and Associates, JWT, CreAsia, Merritt Partners, Tuason Racing School, Gochermann Solar Technology, and Stratworks.

Joining the World Solar Challenge will be an extremely grueling endeavor, the Sinag Project Team is not expected to win any award. “We’re not looking to win but to finish the game and prove that we Filipinos can also do it.”

This is the real Pinoy spirit! I always heard this kind of mentality from my second son who’s into mountain biking. It doesn’t matter if you finish the tracks late, strived enough to finished the trail is important, never quit. That’s his mentality since he started mountain biking 4 years ago, he was 10 years then. Well, Sinag had proved so many things from joining to this competition. Even if this was their first time, they’ve managed to finished the challenge.

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