Why I Believe a country like the Philippines could be a 1st world country in 25 Years Through Tech and Innovation

As I step into my new role as Executive Member of the National Innovation Council of the Philippines representing the entire business sector, I will take my oath in front of the President and the public on June 30, 2023.? Many asked me why I accepted the post, and all I can say is that I dont want to wait until I am retired to have a chance to help uplift the lives of 100 Million people through what I know best - building Innovation ecosystems.?

As many of you know, I have been blessed to have an amazing career - growing up in Manila, but having the chance to study in great academic institutions such as UP, Boston U, Cornell and Stanford, and working in the heart of Silicon Valley and the New York tech ecosystems, and now having a chance to live my dream in being a co-founder of an AI and fintech startup with the Philippines as the pilot country.? I wouldn't have imagined my life turning this way.??

But as I turned 41 last week, I realized that we all need to be thankful for our careers but also find a way to use it to create maximum impact for the world, or else what is the point of gaining all that experience if you wont share it?? I could have waited until I was 65 or 70 to work in a council like this, but what came to my mind was always “if not you, who, if not now, when?”?and Jeff Bezos' challenge,?"the best choice you can make is to use your gifts and live a life of service and adventure. And your life will be defined by the choices you make as you author your life."

Given these reflections, I am extremely optimistic that within the next 25 years, the country can be a First world country again.? That with leadership, guidance, alignment and a bit of luck, it will be possible.

Why is this? I have 5 Reasons why I feel this way:

1. Getting global technical experience has been reset in the past 24 months due to remote work.? Given the changes in the past 2-3 years since the pandemic, access to global experience and projects has never been more accessible to Filipinos than ever before.? I have seen dozens of startups hire remote teams and looking to the Philippines to hire employees rather than outsource contract workers.? With this, the technical experience and challenges that a technologist might solve could be the same as counterparts in Silicon Valley.? Also, with the maturity of the tech ecosystem in Southeast Asia, there are many different digital-first employees that have years of experience seeing how is it to grow from an idea to thousands of customers within a short time frame.? This “scale-up” experience typically only happened in places like Silicon Valley but has now been available to thousands of workers in a place like the Philippines.

1. There is no clear country leader in Generative AI as everyone is starting at the same time.? With the advent of OpenAI and tools like ChatGPT accessible to engineerings in the US and other parts of the world, the knowledge to work with this ground breaking technology has no more “time lag.”? in the 2000s and 2010s, the latest tech innovation typically has a 12-18 month lag of being trained or dabbled in places not in the United States or Western Europe.? These days, I see that there is no time advantage to learn the latest Generative AI tech even if you are in Mumbai, Manila or New York, thus it is hard to tell where the center of gravity of talent, product and know how will be with this Generative AI phase especially driven on how regulation or the population is embracing this change.? For example, in my startup Plentina , we are now experimenting with Generative AI and other machine learning models to help automate wealth management.? This is being built by a collaboration between US and Filipino technical teams with the infrastructure of a hyperscaler like Google Cloud and tools like OpenAI.

1. The Philippines has the important metallic mineral resources that will power the Batteries and Chip Industry.? According to the Philippine Statistics Authority , critical minerals such as nickel, copper, and gold reserves are some of the highest in the world.? With the shift in technology that needs more processing power and batteries, countries like the Philippines has the opportunity to move up the value chain and potentially add value to these minerals and take out potential middle men that just want to import the raw materials and post process in their countries.? This move would be a huge shift for countries who have been historically just exploited for minerals but not get most of the value.?

1. The young and digital-first generation of the Philippines adopt the trends faster than most of the world.? With a median age 24.5, and a 100 million population, the country will have most of its work force being born in or experience the internet through their mobile phones their entire lives.? Because of this, adoption and potentially creation of new technologies can be piloted in the Phiippines, but can quickly scale to markets where there is also mostly thesame generational cohort.? WIth digital adoption crossing borders faster than ever, it would not come as a surprise that a product that is built in a place like the Phiippines can be adopted somewhere else.?

1. If we can focus as a country to be global leaders in 3-5 areas, the nation can succeed.? In the 1960s during the Cold War, the United States grew a national battle cry to bring America to the moon first with NASA and the Apollo missions.? Every man, woman and child wanted to contribute to this big mission.? Countries like the Philippines need the same focus as a nation, to fix a big generational goal that the whole country can solve and lead the world.? Some areas that make sense for the Philippines for example is in climate change tech to help solve the disasters that the country is faced with every year, and then advise other markets how to do this.? Another area is in addressing food security or growing technology that will supercharge the agriculture and aquaculture capability of the country, then export these technologies to other markets.? One last one is in data-driven financial services, where we can create new models to help the population grow their financial capability as the country goes up from a lower middle income economy to a upper middle economy by 2025 , which means more services not merely in spending or credit, but now we have to focus on payments, savings wealth building or investing.

For the next 3 years of my appointment to be part of the National Innovation Council, I am looking forward to working with the President, the Cabinet Members, and the 7 Executive Members from the private sector to have a chance to serve the Filipino people.? I will do my part to help move the country forward through building programs and policies that will strengthen the Innovation capability of the country and unlock our shared mission that maybe in our lifetimes, we can see an emerging market like the Philippines regain its prominence as a first world country and a top 20 global economy by mid-century.