Hosting the Philippine Artificial Intelligence Retreat

A gathering of the top AI founders, researchers and engineers who are solving real problems in the Philippines

Mar 25, 2025

👋 Hey! I haven’t posted for a few years, so you may be surprised to hear from me again.

You probably subscribed to this Substack because of my musings on Silicon Valley’s role in post-WWII Philippine reconstruction and the role of aggregators like YouTube and its network effects in bringing Bongbong Marcos to power.

Most of my writing the past few years have been focused on internal audiences in the companies I worked in. This is a long string of strategy memos and go-to-market plans at Google (building financial infrastructure), Coinbase (scaling in Asia Pacific), and Ripple (launching new crypto products). It was wild to see first-hand the impact of Covid on financial inclusion to battling the SEC on crypto regulation.

So at the start of 2025, I decided to take the year off from full time work and just focus on:

Learning (a long list of books on the Philippine-American War*)
Building/investing (some public equities, some angel investing)
Establishing more durable ties between the US and the Philippines

*Did you know you can visit the San Francisco grave of the army man who masterminded and executed President Aguinaldo’s dramatic capture and surrender?

#3 is an interesting problem, and the topic of this post.

I’ll skip over the argument of how, despite 80 years of independence, the Philippines continues to rely on American economic, technological, and military power. After almost two decades in tech, my conviction in two beliefs has deepened:

Rebuilding the Philippine economy is a worthy Silicon Valley undertaking and an incredibly profound geopolitical imperative to the United States’ interests
Doing so requires the world’s top talent - Americans and Filipinos alike - getting a deeper understanding of on-the-ground problems

So: one of way of sparking this, in a way that’s actionable today, is to host a small gathering of the top AI researchers and builders focused on solving problems in the Philippines.

The Philippine Artificial Intelligence Retreat

If you’re applying to @YCs AI Startup School, then consider joining the Philippines AI Retreat (PAIR) in Silicon Valley. PAIR will:

Gather up to 10 PAIR Fellows for a 3 day private retreat.
Give an award of PHP100,000 each (~$1750) to cover travel from the Philippines.
Host a public summit at Stanford for Fellows to talk about their work on Friday, June 20. I’m co-organizing this with PhilDev.
Connect Fellows with Filipinos from Google, OpenAI, Nvidia, Waymo, Meta, Stripe, Decagon, Coinbase, and more.

Who’s PAIR for?

PAIR Fellows are the top AI researchers and builders focused on solving problems in the Philippines. We welcome people from diverse backgrounds with a genuine interest for the Philippines, especially applicants from the Filipino diaspora. You don’t have to be Filipino to apply.

If you’re in the United States already and working on Philippines-specific problems, we invite you to apply to PAIR! The travel award for US-based Fellows will vary based on their location.

You’ll love this retreat if you are:

A researcher pursuing work at the masters, PhD, or postdoc levels
A founder of an AI-focused startup targeting users or businesses in the Philippines
An aspiring founder with a strong technical background and on the cusp of starting a company
A research scientist, engineer, or product leader working in companies exposed to AI disruption such as BPOs, SaaS, banking, fintech, retail, and manufacturing.
A leader in government agencies or community organizations focused on the positive impact of AI on Philippine development

Our goal is to bring together a diverse cohort who can approach problems from an interdisciplinary perspective, so a mix of researchers, entrepreneurs, industry professionals, and ecosystem builders is ideal. This ensures a high-quality peer group and focused discussions.

Why the Philippines?

With compute costs dropping and open-source models proliferating, the Philippines is a promising market for AI that solves real world problems. As Satya Nadella recently said,

“If you're going to have this explosion, abundance, whatever, commodity of intelligence available, the first thing we have to observe is GDP growth…
But that's to me the moment: self-claiming some AGI milestone, that's just nonsensical benchmark hacking to me.
The real benchmark is: the world growing at 10%” [1]

The Philippines’ is the oldest US treaty ally in Asia. Rebuilding the defense, manufacturing, and logistics sectors are major national priorities.[2]
The BPO sector drives ~10% of GDP and employs 1.7 million workers [3]. Long-term, even remittances from overseas service workers (~$40B) — nurses, engineers, seafarers — are at risk as robotics and autonomy take over.
A young, digital-native, English-speaking population holds favorable views of the US [4]. But student test scores are among the lowest in the world, creating massive opportunities to launch personalized AI tutors [5]
There’s a generational boom in physical infrastructure, creating opportunities for agentic AI products and new sources of energy [6].
The country has an engaged civil society, where the impact of AI on social issues and economic development are openly debated. A number of AI-related bills are in Congress [7]
The Philippines shares a long history with American innovation - even before the term was coined, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur rebuilt the country’s capital after the destruction of WWII. [8]
Startups that have relied on the Philippines for joint research, test markets, or local talent include Valar Atomics (nuclear energy), Astranis (satellites), Canva (design SaaS), Scale AI, and Athena.

Why Join PAIR?

Our desired outcomes for PAIR Fellows are to:

Build closer working ties with Silicon Valley leaders
Establish lifelong relationships with like-minded, ambitious peers
Generate new ideas & initiatives that can be applied to solving problems in the Philippines
Explore opportunities to scale AI work beyond the Philippines to serve other emerging markets

PAIR Fellows will meet:

Dado and Maria Banatao, PhilDev Foundation
Danielle Garcia, ex-Meta, Product Management
Martin Gonzalez, Google DeepMind, Organizational Development Lead. Author of “The Bonfire Moment”
Sedrick Keh, Toyota Research Institute, Research Engineer
Gram Liu, Decagon, Member of Technical Staff, ex-Stripe
Raiza Martin, Huxe Co-Founder, ex-Google Labs
Reiichiro Nakano, OpenAI, Member of Technical Staff
Jordana Valencia, Waymo, Learning & Development