The Philippines is positioning itself as a haven for global innovators and making a critical contribution to achieve ASEAN's goal to create a $1 trillion digital economy by 2030.

In the recent Digital Pilipinas Festival, foreign and Filipino leaders shared their plans for mutual advancement by making innovations like Web 3.0, InsureTech, AI, and Big Data, among others, more accessible to the mainstream public.

Amor Maclang, Digital Pilipinas, and World Fintech Festival -Philippines Convenor acknowledged the conference leaders "who share ASEAN's vision of innovation and unity born from a desire for mutual advancement."

Digital Pilipinas is the largest private sector movement for creating a technology and innovation ecosystem geared to bring about technological acceleration in the country and build an anti-fragile system in its societal structures and industries. It convened the Digital Pilipinas Festival, composed of the World FinTech Festival-Philippines and the Philippine FinTech Festival, in partnership with Elevandi, an organization founded by the Monetary Authority of Singapore to foster public-private-sector dialogue to advance FinTech in the digital economy.

With Digital Pilipinas as a platform for international tech collaboration, she also positioned the Philippines as "a welcoming gateway to ASEAN for other countries who wish to do business in our region, for innovators from other countries who, in the face of adverse political or economic conditions, need to temporarily relocate to where their culture of innovation will be preserved."

The advantages of ASEAN tech collaboration

Manish Bhai, founder, president, and CEO of UNO Digital Bank, agreed that without such a cross-border ecosystem, "we will not be successful with digitalization. We are trying to make everyone a collaborator, and it has to be cross-country, ASEAN, regional, global."

A positive impact on trade would be the first advantage of an ASEAN tech collaboration. As Jimmy Kyle Siy, Brankas director of customer success, says, "The more seamless transactions are between ASEAN countries, the more trade amongst its member countries is encouraged."

He added, "Technology also enables a broader demographic of prospective trade partners. One good example is how Singapore and Indonesia have linked their respective fast payment systems (PayNow and UPI) to enable low-cost fund transfers. We need to work with the respective governments to make sure we are fully compliant with the various monetary policies of each."

Angkas CEO George Royeca said that working with ASEAN entails "collaboration with regulators trying to create the best products that will have the highest positive effect. We can have better rates and good insurance plans."

Meanwhile, Noel Bonoan, chief operating officer and vice chair of KPMG, said they are also concentrating on "e-governance to deliver good services for a younger constituency and to make their cities more livable."

Digital transformation

Ann Cuisia, the CEO and president of digiCOOP Technology Service Cooperative, also echoed that they are building ecosystems to "provide digital services for cooperatives and their members, widely progressing mostly for the grassroots."