UNLEASH Philippines, an innovation program, has gathered 150 young participants from across the Philippines to develop sustainable solutions for health, food, and city infrastructure challenges using design thinking.
Held at the University of Santo Tomas (UST), the week-long Innovation Lab brought participants to workshops, field visits, and co-creation sessions, teams refined solutions across three thematic tracks.
The program is part of the global UNLEASH initiative and was developed in partnership with the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Leaders in Innovation Fellowships (LIF).
For many participants, their decision to join came from deeply personal experiences with the problems they wanted to solve.
Erica Urquiaga, part of the agriculture track, grew up in a farming family in Bukidnon. Crop loss wasn’t just a statistic — it shaped her childhood.
“When harvests fail, it affects everything — income, meals, school. Innovation doesn’t need to look big to be meaningful. Sometimes it just solves something people deal with every day,” she shared.
Her team is developing a low-cost soil monitoring tool to help small farmers make better decisions amid shifting weather patterns.
Technology
For RJ Gatchalian, the program reinforced the need to balance technical frameworks with lived realities.
“We often design cities from policy documents and data models. UNLEASH reminded us to sit down with actual communities,” he said.
His team’s project focuses on helping essential workers navigate mobility disruptions during flooding — an issue he observed firsthand while working with labor groups
For Robert Anlocotan, innovation turned personal after losing an uncle to a preventable heart condition in 2022. His team’s wearable device, Art Sense, detects early signs of cardiovascular irregularities.
“The idea started as a technical solution. But after working with health workers in Navotas and hearing stories just like ours, it stopped being a project and became a responsibility,” he said.
Following the program, teams advance to the UNLEASH Prototyping Program, gaining mentorship, technical guidance, and support as they move toward implementation.
As 2026 unfolds, the challenges facing communities remain complex. But efforts like UNLEASH Philippines continue to show that collaborative, people-centered problem-solving is happening at many levels. More than a year-end milestone, it serves as a reminder that change is already in motion — and it is being built by the people who experience these challenges every day.
