Growing Top AI Talent for the Philippines
Meet the Inaugural Fellows of the Philippine Artificial Intelligence Retreat (PAIR)
AI is being used in the Philippines to solve real problems in healthcare, education, business, and more.
To support this work, we’re proud to introduce the 8 Fellows of the first Philippine Artificial Intelligence Retreat (PAIR). Their projects reflect important themes—like mental health, legal access, teaching, and making businesses more efficient—that are shaping how AI is used in the country.
What is PAIR and Why Now?
PAIR is a four-day event happening on June 17–20, 2025, in Silicon Valley. It brings together Filipino AI researchers, founders, and engineers who are working on real problems in the Philippines.
The program includes a private retreat and culminates with the US-Philippines Artificial Intelligence Summit. The summit is co-organized with PhilDev and Stanford’s US-Asia Technology Management Center.
The mission is to help Fellows build strong connections, learn from experts, and gain a global perspective they can bring back home. We’ve selected leaders who have shown they can get things done and are committed to using AI to make a difference in the Philippines.
By connecting Filipino talent with global leaders in AI, we aim to equip Fellows with insights and allies that will accelerate innovation back home.
Our Story
PAIR is organized by Oliver Segovia and Jordana Valencia.
Oliver first experienced the power of technology when he joined tens of thousands of citizens using mobile phones to peacefully boot out a corrupt president. Since then, he spent two decades bridging Silicon Valley and Asia. After founding an ecommerce company - now a Harvard Business School case study - he joined startup teams within Silicon Valley giants to launch products for emerging markets.
At Google Pay, he helped drive $400 billion in real time payments volume across Asia. At Coinbase & Ripple, he navigated crypto winter to expand globally and positioned blockchain solutions for banks and fintechs. At Meta, Oliver worked on market entry strategy for payments and community products. Each role deepened his conviction that building economic and social infrastructure in emerging economies like the Philippines—America's oldest treaty ally in Asia and one of the world's fastest growing markets—is the most impactful way to diffuse technology around the world.
Jordana develops the people who build the future. At Waymo, she designs leadership & development programs for AI engineers. Previously at Grab, she built learning initiatives across 11 countries, reaching thousands of people. With an MBA from Harvard Business School and a Master’s in Psychology from Columbia, she understands how ambitious people grow and change.
PAIR reflects Oliver and Jordana’s conviction that bringing Filipino talent together with global leaders accelerates AI adoption to solve real problems in emerging markets.
Meet the 2025 PAIR Fellows
In alphabetical order:
Adrian Cayaco
Head of AI Engineering, Stratpoint Technologies
A solutions architect turned AI engineer with more than a decade of experience at Stratpoint, Adrian leads initiatives in federated learning, geospatial ML, and agentic AI. At Stratpoint, he shapes real-world systems with practical impact, while helping train the next generation of Filipino AI engineers. .
Allan Tan
Founder / Chief AI Scientist, Predictive Systems Inc.
A serial entrepreneur and technical leader, Allan is building GenAI tools for enterprises and voice-enabled assessment platforms for students. He founded Ideyatech, which scaled and exited to global firm MonstarLab. Allan also serves on industry boards and mentors founders.
Beato Bongco
CEO, Anycase AI
Beato is a builder-CEO and fullstack AI engineer. He founded of Anycase AI, which uses retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) to streamline legal research. He previously led NLP and RAG teams across Japan, the U.S., and the Philippines. He’s obsessed with building tools that help people think better.
Criselle Angeline Peñamante
Master of Medical Sciences in Global Health Delivery, Harvard Medical School
A physician-educator focused on digital mental health, Criselle is building research and partnerships that bridge medicine, tech, and community care in low-resource contexts. She advocates for stigma-free, AI-assisted mental health access in the Philippines.
Dana Kathleen Redeña
Engineering Lead, Hive Health
A rising tech leader and former data scientist at Thinking Machines, Dana now leads engineering at Hive Health, architecting a healthcare platform to expand insurance access to 70M+ Filipinos. She combines strong technical leadership with a deep commitment to equitable systems design.
Eugene Rex L. Jalao, Ph.D.
Professor, University of the Philippines Diliman
A professor of AI and industrial engineering at UP Diliman, Rex is a driving force behind the country’s academic AI infrastructure. He co-founded the UP Intelligent Systems Center and the Analytics Association of the Philippines, and currently leads research on mental health chatbots and AI-powered supply chain systems.
Gian Paulo dela Rama
Chief Product and AI Officer, Sprout Solutions
After exiting his AI startup Aiah.ai to Sprout Solutions, Gian now leads Sprout’s enterprise AI agent portfolio. His team has built and scaled tools that automate 70% of BPO workflows. He’s also a tech VC, university educator, and advocate for AI adoption in Southeast Asia.
JP Madulid
Deputy CEO, Symph
As the founder of Lesson Planner PH and a senior leader at Symph, JP bridges startup execution, government partnerships, and enterprise AI. His platform has saved 10M+ teacher hours by automating lesson plans, and he continues to advocate for AI-driven education tools.
You can also find their full bios at the end of this post.
The best way to meet the Fellows is to attend the US-Philippines AI Summit.
What the Fellows Are Working On
1. Improving Access to Basic Services
Beato is making legal research faster and easier. Criselle is researching how digital tools can improve mental health care. Dana is helping more people get access to health insurance. These projects show how AI can help fix everyday challenges in health and legal systems.
2. Making Education More Practical and Personal
JP’s Lesson Planner and Allan’s Better-Ed help teachers and students save time and learn more effectively. In a country where many students struggle to keep up, these tools offer simple ways to improve learning across schools.
3. Helping Businesses Work Faster
Gian’s team at Sprout uses AI to automate repetitive work, especially in the BPO sector. Dana and Adrian are also building systems that make business operations more efficient, from underwriting health insurance for SMBs to enterprise software.
4. Strengthening the AI Community in the Philippines
Rex leads AI research and training at the University of the Philippines - Diliman. Gian mentors startups and invests in early-stage companies. Allan helps shape the national tech curriculum. Together, they’re helping grow the talent pool needed to support AI work across the country.
Final Thoughts
These eight Fellows are solving real problems in the Philippines using AI—from schools and hospitals to startups and research labs. We’re excited to support them as they share ideas, meet global experts, and return home with new ways to make their work even stronger.
Stay tuned for more updates from PAIR and stories from the Fellows after the retreat.
Full Fellow Bios:
Adrian Cayaco: Head of AI Engineering, Stratpoint Technologies | LinkedIn
Adrian Cayaco is the Head of AI Engineering at Stratpoint Labs, where he leads initiatives in AI/ML and emerging technologies. With over a decade of experience in systems and application development, his current focus areas include federated learning, geospatial machine learning, and agentic AI—working with cross-functional teams to develop scalable, real-world solutions.
With a background in solutions and applications architecting, Adrian shapes the technical direction at Stratpoint and supports engineers in designing and deploying practical AI systems. His experience spans computer vision, natural language processing, and end-to-end ML/DL projects, as well as earlier work in mobile and desktop application development.
Allan Tan: Founder / Chief AI Scientist, Predictive Systems Inc. | LinkedIn
Allan is the founder and Chief AI Scientist at Predictive Systems, Inc., a pioneering AI company focused on building on-premise generative AI solutions (for businesses) that are secure, explainable, and aligned with business goals. Previously, he founded Ideyatech, which scaled and exited to global firm MonstarLab. With over 20 years in tech, he blends hands-on engineering with product strategy.
Currently, Allan is working on Better-Ed, a voice-enabled, AI-powered education platform that assesses student knowledge through natural conversation. Designed for schools and educators, Better-Ed enhances learning retention, boosts engagement, and aligns with the Filipino curriculum.
He also sits on the board of the Philippines Software Industry Association, co-leads Founder Institute Manila - a startup accelerator from Silicon Valley, and helps shape the national IT curriculum for the Commissioner of Higher Education. He also shares AI insights on his YouTube channel, Artificially Intelligent.
Beato Bongco: CEO, Anycase AI | LinkedIn
Beato is a builder-CEO and full-stack AI product engineer with a decade of experience shipping systems across the AI stack - from web apps and data pipelines to semantic search engines and production LLM applications.
He’s the cofounder and CEO of Anycase.ai, a legal AI startup augmenting lawyers to make quality legal help accessible to more Filipinos. In its first year, Anycase grew rapidly to 8,000+ users, increased revenue by 20x, and became cash-flow positive, powered by a custom RAG system and evaluation harness benchmarked against Philippine bar exams - with users reporting it cuts their legal research time by 75%.
Previously, Beato led RAG engineering at Bespoke (Tokyo), upgrading their chatbot platform into a multilingual, multi-turn RAG system. Before that, he managed globally distributed engineering teams at a San Francisco-based NLP startup focused on financial and biomedical intelligence, overhauling core algorithms and pipelines.
Earlier, at Thinking Machines (Manila), he led the development of AI-powered document search and retrieval systems for enterprise clients in Southeast Asia. He describes himself as a “RAG-obsessed dilettante”, driven by the dream of building AI systems that help people think, learn, and make better decisions.
Criselle Angeline Peñamante: Master of Medical Sciences in Global Health Delivery, Harvard Medical School | LinkedIn
Criselle is a physician, educator, and clinical researcher dedicated to strengthening the Philippine mental health care system through digital innovation. She completed a Master of Medical Sciences in Global Health Delivery at Harvard Medical School, where her thesis explores the role of social media in improving mental health service delivery in the Philippines.
Criselle’s work bridges medicine, education, and technology to address gaps in access (to healthcare) and equity, particularly in low-resource settings. As a faculty member at the University of Santo Tomas in Manila, she teaches human anatomy and clinical epidemiology to pre-medical and medical students, while also mentoring future healthcare professionals.
Criselle is actively engaged in global and local initiatives, serving as Director of Culture, Diversity, and Inclusion at Harvard Alumni for Mental Health. Her advocacy centers on harnessing digital platforms to support community-based care, reduce stigma, and empower mental health systems. Through research, teaching, and leadership, she aims to drive meaningful change in how mental health services are delivered and understood in the digital age.
Dana Kathleen Redeña: Engineering Lead, Hive Health | LinkedIn
Dana is an emerging tech leader and social innovator, driving impactful solutions through responsible technology. A full-stack data scientist, Dana champions a comprehensive approach to engineering, extending beyond code to encompass deep user understanding, effective stakeholder communication, and decision transparency.
Currently, Dana leads the Engineering team at Hive Health (YC S21), where she is architecting and building an interoperable healthcare ecosystem. A core achievement is the development of their MVP adjudication engine, designed to revolutionize healthcare access for 70 million Filipinos lacking private health insurance. Prior to Hive Health, Dana served as a volunteer Community Leadership Team Lead at KadaKareer. In this leadership role, she directly influenced the non-profit strategic direction and piloted leadership programs to bridge education to employment for Filipino students. At Thinking Machines, Dana also shaped the Data for Development team, directing the application of AI and data science for impactful projects with organizations such as UNICEF and Gold Standard.
As a PAIR Fellow, Dana brings her experience across startups, development organizations, and nonprofits. With a strong foundation in computer science and a proven track record of technical leadership and social impact, she is committed to leading the ethical and effective deployment of AI solutions in the Philippines.
Eugene Rex L. Jalao, Ph.D.: Professor, University of the Philippines Diliman | LinkedIn
Dr. Eugene Rex L. Jalao is a full Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Industrial Engineering at the University of the Philippines Diliman, Department of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research and as well as the AI Program of the College of Engineering. He specializes in Decision Support Systems, Business Analytics Solutions, Data Mining, Optimization and Systems Simulation.
Rex obtained his Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from Arizona State University (ASU) in May 2013. Additionally, he obtained his Master of Science in Industrial Engineering degree as well as his Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering from the University of the Philippines Diliman in 2009 and 2007 respectively. His eighteen years of work and research experience are in the fields of data science, AI and analytics both here in the Philippines and in the United States of America, specifically in the Banking, FMCG, Manufacturing, Real Estate, Healthcare, Telecommunications and Information Technology industries. He is also one of the founders of the Analytics and AI Association of the Philippines (AAP) as well as the UP Intelligent Systems Center (ISC) as the main research arm of UP in terms of intelligent systems.
Rex currently works on AI applications in healthcare, specifically depression symptom detection models and mental health chatbot user-centered design studies, as well as AI powered supply chain engineering solutions for vehicle routing solutions and food security in the Philippines.
Gian Paulo dela Rama: Chief Product and AI Officer, Sprout Solutions | LinkedIn
Gian dela Rama is a pioneering force in the Philippine AI and startup ecosystem. He is the founder of Aiah.Ai, a trailblazing AI company that built natural language processing (NLP) chatbots to automate lead generation and customer service workflows for large enterprises. Aiah also played a critical role in the nation’s pandemic response by developing KIRA, the official COVID-19 chatbot of the Philippines.
Under Gian’s leadership, Aiah was recognized as one of the Philippine Daily Inquirer and Statista’s 2023 Growth Champions, ranking 4th among the fastest-growing companies in the country. In the same year, Aiah achieved a milestone exit through its acquisition by Sprout Solutions, becoming one of the first AI startups in the Philippines to successfully exit.
Gian now serves as Chief Product and AI Officer at Sprout, where he leads the Sprout AI Labs team in developing next-generation enterprise AI agents. His team launched Concierge, a generative AI RAG chatbot that automates enterprise knowledge retrieval; Inbound, an AI-powered sales development rep tailored for automotive and real estate sectors; and Sidekick, an automation agent designed to handle payroll, HR, and other BPO processes. Notably, Sidekick has automated over 70% of the manual processes in Sprout’s payroll outsourcing unit, enabling the business to more than double its revenue without increasing headcount.
He is also spearheading the transformation of Sprout’s product development process through the use of AI agent–assisted software development, rethinking how its design, product management and engineering teams build, ship, and scale its products.
Outside of Sprout, Gian teaches at the Ateneo de Manila University in the Information Technology Entrepreneurship Program, serves as the Technology Venture Partner of the GenAI Fund, a regional venture capital firm, and is a proud father of two. His work reflects a deep commitment to advancing the AI ecosystem in Southeast Asia while helping shape the next generation of innovators and builders.
JP Madulid: Deputy CEO, Symph | LinkedIn
JP Madulid is the Deputy CEO of Symph, a software design and development company that leverages cloud technologies and AI to create solutions for startups, government agencies, and enterprise companies. He works alongside the CEO to shape the company’s future, focusing on AI innovation and strategy. This includes driving investments in AI development, research, and product-building to enhance Symph’s technology offerings.
JP is also the Founder of Lesson Planner PH, an AI-driven platform designed to simplify lesson planning and class preparation for teachers. They have established a partnership with the Department of Education and were awarded the Philippine’s DICT Startup Grant Fund to further develop their product and bring it to the hands of every Filipino educator. To date, it has helped over 500,000 teachers, generated 3 million lesson plans, and saved teachers more than 10 million hours of preparation time. With the power of AI, he aims to "Drive positive global impact by building products for every problem affecting human life".