Menu

Doc Ligot

daily-post-image

Coordinating the Philippines’ AI Future: Inside the Push for a National AI Task Force

, , , , ,

Manila just moved a step closer to a national game plan for AI — and this week’s headlines show why the timing matters.

The Weekly Headline: Philippines Pushes for a National AI Task Force as DOST Aims to Upskill a Million Filipinos

A Coordinated Push, Finally

For years, AI initiatives in the Philippines have popped up in silos — a pilot here, a roadmap there, a task force proposal that quietly fizzled. That may be changing. This month, the Private Sector Advisory Council (PSAC) formally urged President Marcos to create a National AI Implementation Taskforce, presenting the proposal during the fifth meeting of the PSAC Education and Jobs Sector Group at Malacañang. The president reportedly agreed to the idea in principle, though he wants more private-sector input before it’s finalized.

The proposed taskforce would organize around three pillars: education and workforce development, technology and infrastructure (including R&D), and policy and governance. PSAC has also recommended releasing P650 million from the Higher Education Development Fund specifically to fund AI upskilling programs in colleges and universities next year.

DOST’s Million-Worker Bet

The taskforce proposal lands alongside a concrete number from the Department of Science and Technology: DOST is targeting the upskilling of one million Filipino workers in AI by the end of the Marcos administration in 2028. Secretary Renato Solidum Jr. has framed workforce development as one of four pillars of the government’s broader AI strategy, with DOST coordinating alongside TESDA and CHED to weave AI training into technical and higher education. A smaller, more specialized track aims to produce around 1,000 advanced AI researchers and engineers through funded graduate studies.

Put those two stories together and a pattern emerges: the debate in Philippine AI policy is no longer “should we do this” — it’s “who coordinates it, and how fast can we scale training without leaving people behind.”

Why the Coordination Problem Actually Matters

Skeptics might read a new taskforce as another layer of bureaucracy. But the PSAC’s own framing is telling: the goal is explicitly to fix “fragmented implementation,” where government agencies, private companies, and universities have been building overlapping AI programs without a shared playbook. A single coordinating body doesn’t guarantee results, but the alternative — every agency running its own AI pilot in isolation — is a recipe for wasted funding and mixed messaging to the public.

This is exactly the kind of systems-level thinking that ethics and governance advocates in the Philippine AI community have been pushing for. Groups like the Philippine AI Business Association, where Doc Ligot serves as Director for AI Ethics and Data Governance, have long argued that upskilling without governance guardrails just accelerates risk. Training a million people to use AI tools is only half the job if there’s no shared framework for using them responsibly.

AI isn’t coming. It’s here.

The Philippines isn’t debating whether AI belongs in classrooms, call centers, or government offices anymore. It’s negotiating who’s in charge of making sure the rollout is coordinated, funded, and grounded in ethics rather than hype. That negotiation is happening right now, in real meetings, with real budget numbers attached.

Further Reading:

If national AI governance and ethics is a topic you want to go deeper on, Doc Ligot — the featured speaker at AI Talks @ Younifest — covers exactly this territory in his upcoming webinars. Details at aitalks.younifest.com.

About Doc Ligot:

Dominic “Doc” Ligot is one of the leading voices in AI in the Philippines. Doc has been extensively cited in local and global media outlets including The Economist, South China Morning Post, Washington Post, and Agence France Presse. His award-winning work has been recognized and published by prestigious organizations such as NASA, Data.org, Digital Public Goods Alliance, the Group on Earth Observations (GEO), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the World Health Organization (WHO), and UNICEF.

If you need guidance or training in maximizing AI for your career or business, reach out to Doc via https://docligot.com.

Follow Doc Ligot on Facebook: https://facebook.com/docligotAI

daily-post-image

Doc Ligot Takes AI Beyond Manila: From Cebu’s Boardrooms to Bacolod’s Countryside

, , , , , ,

This week the AI conversation in the Philippines left Manila’s boardrooms behind — one stop in Cebu, where IT-BPM leaders debated what comes after digital transformation, and another in Bacolod, where organizers are asking the countryside to claim a seat at the table. Doc Ligot showed up at both.

The Weekly Headline: Doc Ligot Takes AI Beyond Manila

Cebu Asks What Comes After Digital Transformation

On August 14, Dominic “Doc” Ligot, founder of CirroLytix Research, joined a fireside chat on “AI-Driven Operating Models in IT-BPM” at the CIB.O Transformation Summit in Cebu. The event’s premise was blunt: the region’s outsourcing industry has spent a decade digitizing, and now has to figure out what it means to run on AI instead of just around it. That’s a harder question than it sounds — it touches jobs, workflows, and who gets to decide how fast the shift happens.

Bacolod Wants In

A day earlier, roughly 200 kilometers away, a forum in Bacolod pushed a related but distinct point: the AI economy can’t just be a Metro Manila and Cebu story. Local organizers called for wider countryside participation, echoing a theme Doc Ligot has raised often — that AI governance and opportunity in the Philippines need to reach past the capital and the BPM hubs, or they end up reinforcing the same old gaps.

Two Cities, One Argument

Put side by side, the two events make a single case: the Philippines’ AI moment isn’t just about adopting tools faster than the region next door. It’s about deciding, deliberately, who gets included in that adoption — displaced workers, rural entrepreneurs, and provincial governments that don’t have Manila’s budget or bandwidth. Doc Ligot’s own work, from data ethics frameworks to public-sector AI guidance, keeps circling back to that same tension between speed and fairness.

AI isn’t coming. It’s here.

Whether it’s a BPM company in Cebu retooling its operating model or a town in Negros Occidental asking to be part of the conversation, the pattern is the same: AI is no longer a future problem to plan for. It’s a present one to manage well — and who gets a voice in that management is still being decided.

Doc Ligot is the featured speaker at AI Talks @ Younifest, with upcoming webinars covering AI ethics, governance, and practical adoption. Visit https://aitalks.younifest.com for details and schedules.

Further Reading:

About Doc Ligot:

Dominic “Doc” Ligot is one of the leading voices in AI in the Philippines. Doc has been extensively cited in local and global media outlets including The Economist, South China Morning Post, Washington Post, and Agence France Presse. His award-winning work has been recognized and published by prestigious organizations such as NASA, Data.org, Digital Public Goods Alliance, the Group on Earth Observations (GEO), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the World Health Organization (WHO), and UNICEF.

If you need guidance or training in maximizing AI for your career or business, reach out to Doc via https://docligot.com.

Follow Doc Ligot on Facebook: https://facebook.com/docligotAI

From Digital to AI Transformation: Doc Ligot’s Cebu Wake-Up Call

, , , ,

Cebu’s IT-BPM sector just got a direct message from one of the country’s sharpest AI minds: the shift from digital transformation to AI transformation isn’t a five-year plan anymore — it’s already underway.

The Weekly Headline: From Digital to AI Transformation: Doc Ligot’s Cebu Wake-Up Call

On August 14, 2026, more than 500 delegates from over 200 companies packed the Grand Ballroom of Summit Galleria Cebu for CIB.O’s Transformation Summit — one of the country’s largest gatherings of IT-BPM leaders. The headline session, “From Digital Transformation to AI Transformation: What’s in Store for Cebu?”, was led by Dominic Vincent “Doc” Ligot, CEO of Cirrolytix Research, followed by a fireside chat on AI-driven operating models alongside Michelle Alarcon of the Analytics and AI Association of the Philippines and other industry leaders.

Why this matters beyond Cebu

The Philippines’ BPO sector employs over a million Filipinos and is exactly the kind of industry the World Bank recently flagged as most exposed to generative AI disruption. Doc’s framing at the summit cuts through the usual hype: digital transformation was about moving processes online. AI transformation is about redesigning how decisions get made, who makes them, and what happens to the people whose jobs were the process. That’s a much harder conversation, and it’s one companies can’t outsource to a vendor slide deck.

From adoption to accountability

What stood out in the fireside chat wasn’t optimism about AI tools — it was the emphasis on operating models. Alarcon and Doc both pushed the room past “which AI product should we buy” toward questions of governance: who audits the model’s decisions, how do you retrain a workforce mid-transition, and what guardrails protect customer data when AI agents start handling frontline interactions. This is the same thread running through Doc’s broader work — using AI and data for public good, not just efficiency gains.

A national pattern, not a one-off event

The Cebu summit landed the same week the Private Sector Advisory Council called for a national AI implementation task force, and days after the European Chamber of Commerce’s AI Forum in Manila tackled “Bridging Innovation and Integrity.” Add the Bacolod-based TRAIN 2026 conference pushing AI conversations beyond Metro Manila, and a pattern emerges: the Philippines isn’t waiting for a national AI policy to arrive before industries start restructuring around AI.

AI isn’t coming. It’s here.

Cebu’s IT-BPM sector has spent two decades building a global reputation on digital operations. The question Doc put to the room this week is whether that same sector can now lead — rather than merely absorb — the AI transition. For any organization watching from the sidelines, the signal is the same: the shift already started, and operating models built for the digital era need a rewrite for the AI one.

Want to go deeper on responsible AI adoption? Doc Ligot is the featured speaker at AI Talks @ Younifest, with upcoming webinars covering exactly these questions of AI governance and transformation. Visit aitalks.younifest.com for details.

Further Reading

About Doc Ligot:

Dominic “Doc” Ligot is one of the leading voices in AI in the Philippines. Doc has been extensively cited in local and global media outlets including The Economist, South China Morning Post, Washington Post, and Agence France Presse. His award-winning work has been recognized and published by prestigious organizations such as NASA, Data.org, Digital Public Goods Alliance, the Group on Earth Observations (GEO), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the World Health Organization (WHO), and UNICEF.

If you need guidance or training in maximizing AI for your career or business, reach out to Doc via https://docligot.com.

Follow Doc Ligot on Facebook: https://facebook.com/docligotAI

daily-post-image

From Digital Transformation to AI Transformation: Doc Ligot’s Cebu Wake-Up Call

, , ,

Doc Ligot just told a room of 500 BPM leaders in Cebu what “AI transformation” actually looks like on the ground — and it’s not the story most headlines are telling.

The Weekly Headline: From Digital Transformation to AI Transformation — Doc Ligot’s Cebu Wake-Up Call

A summit, a fireside chat, and a hard question

On August 14, at the CIB.O Transformation Summit in Cebu, Dominic “Doc” Ligot stood in front of more than 500 delegates from over 200 companies and asked a version of the question every IT-BPM leader in the Philippines is quietly wrestling with: if digital transformation was about moving processes online, what does AI transformation actually require?

His talk, “From Digital Transformation to AI Transformation: What’s in Store for Cebu?”, set up the day’s centerpiece — a fireside chat on AI-Driven Operating Models in IT-BPM, where Doc sat alongside Michelle Alarcon of the Analytics and AI Association of the Philippines, Globe Business’s William Brian Arnaiz, and leaders from PingPong Pay and SANAS.

Why this matters beyond Cebu

The Philippine BPM sector employs over a million people, and a huge share of that workforce sits squarely in the path of generative AI’s productivity gains — and its disruption risk. Doc’s framing, consistent with his broader body of work, is that the winners won’t be the companies that simply bolt AI tools onto existing workflows. They’ll be the ones that redesign the operating model itself: how work gets routed, how quality gets measured, and how people get reskilled into higher-value roles rather than displaced by them.

That’s not an abstract concern for Doc. As CEO of Cirrolytix Research, he’s spent years building AI systems for public health, disaster response, and human rights work — projects where getting the ethics and the operating model wrong has real consequences. He brings that same rigor when the audience is a room full of BPO executives instead of humanitarian agencies.

The bigger Philippine AI moment

Doc’s Cebu appearance lands in a busy stretch for Philippine AI policy. The DICT and Civil Service Commission issued a joint memorandum in June establishing ethical AI principles for the public sector, and DepEd’s AGAP.AI program is rolling out AI literacy training aimed at 1.5 million students, teachers, and parents nationwide. The throughline across all of it, government and industry alike, is the same one Doc has been pushing for years: AI adoption without a plan for people is not transformation, it’s just automation with extra steps.

AI isn’t coming. It’s here.

Whether it’s a BPM floor in Cebu or a classroom AI literacy module, the pattern is identical — the technology is the easy part. The hard part is redesigning how people and institutions work alongside it, deliberately and ethically. That’s exactly the conversation Doc Ligot keeps having, one stage at a time.

Doc Ligot is the featured speaker at AI Talks @ Younifest, with upcoming webinars digging into these same questions of responsible AI adoption for teams and organizations. Details and registration are at https://aitalks.younifest.com.

Further Reading:

About Doc Ligot:

Dominic “Doc” Ligot is one of the leading voices in AI in the Philippines. Doc has been extensively cited in local and global media outlets including The Economist, South China Morning Post, Washington Post, and Agence France Presse. His award-winning work has been recognized and published by prestigious organizations such as NASA, Data.org, Digital Public Goods Alliance, the Group on Earth Observations (GEO), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the World Health Organization (WHO), and UNICEF.

If you need guidance or training in maximizing AI for your career or business, reach out to Doc via https://docligot.com.

Follow Doc Ligot on Facebook: https://facebook.com/docligotAI

daily-post-image

From Digital to AI — Doc Ligot Tells Cebu What Comes Next

, , , , ,

Cebu’s biggest tech gathering just made the shift official: this isn’t “digital transformation” anymore. It’s AI transformation — and one of the Philippines’ most trusted AI voices helped set the tone.

The Weekly Headline: From Digital to AI — Doc Ligot Tells Cebu What Comes Next

A summit stage, a bigger question

On August 14, over 500 delegates from more than 200 companies packed the Grand Ballroom of Summit Galleria Cebu for the Cebu IT-BPM Organization’s (CIB.O) 2026 Transformation Summit. The headline session, “From Digital Transformation to AI Transformation: What’s in Store for Cebu?”, was delivered by Dominic “Doc” Ligot, CEO of Cirrolytix Research and one of the country’s leading voices on responsible AI adoption. Doc also joined a fireside chat on AI-driven operating models in IT-BPM — the industry that has powered Cebu’s economy for two decades and is now staring down its most disruptive shift yet.

Why this matters beyond Cebu

The timing isn’t a coincidence. Just days earlier, the World Bank flagged that AI could power significant growth for the Philippine economy — while warning that the BPO sector, the same one filling that Cebu ballroom, faces real disruption from automation. The Department of Trade and Industry opened a new AI and Scale-Up Center in Manila on August 11, offering free AI training and cloud tools to small businesses. TESDA reported roughly 90,000 Filipinos enrolled in AI-related courses as of July. The pattern is clear: the Philippines isn’t asking whether to adopt AI anymore. It’s asking how fast, and how responsibly.

The responsible-AI thread

That “how responsibly” question is exactly where Doc Ligot’s work has focused for years — through Cirrolytix, AI and Data Ethics PH, and his role as Director for AI Ethics and Data Governance at the Philippine AI Business Association. His message to Cebu’s IT-BPM leaders wasn’t just about adopting new tools; it was about building the governance, skills, and trust needed so AI transformation doesn’t leave workers or communities behind. For an industry built on people — hundreds of thousands of agents, analysts, and support staff across the Visayas — that framing matters as much as the technology itself.

AI isn’t coming. It’s here.

A ballroom of 500 delegates debating AI-driven operating models isn’t a preview of the future — it’s this week’s business news. The question every organization in Cebu, and everywhere else, now faces is whether their AI transformation is intentional, ethical, and inclusive, or just reactive.

Want to go deeper on responsible AI adoption? Doc Ligot is the featured speaker at AI Talks @ Younifest, with upcoming webinars covering exactly these questions. Details and registration are at aitalks.younifest.com.

Further Reading

About Doc Ligot:

Dominic “Doc” Ligot is one of the leading voices in AI in the Philippines. Doc has been extensively cited in local and global media outlets including The Economist, South China Morning Post, Washington Post, and Agence France Presse. His award-winning work has been recognized and published by prestigious organizations such as NASA, Data.org, Digital Public Goods Alliance, the Group on Earth Observations (GEO), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the World Health Organization (WHO), and UNICEF.

If you need guidance or training in maximizing AI for your career or business, reach out to Doc via https://docligot.com.

Follow Doc Ligot on Facebook: https://facebook.com/docligotAI

daily-post-image

The Philippines Just Wrote Its First Rulebook for Government AI

, , , , ,

The Philippine government just drew its first real line in the sand on AI ethics — and the rules now reach any private company that builds AI tools for public agencies.

The Weekly Headline: The Philippines Just Wrote Its First Rulebook for Government AI

A quiet circular with a loud implication

On June 9, 2026, the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) and the Civil Service Commission (CSC) issued Joint Memorandum Circular No. 003, Series of 2026 — a principles-based framework for the ethical and responsible development, deployment, and use of AI across the Philippine public sector. It’s not flashy. It won’t trend on social media. But it’s arguably the most consequential AI policy move the country has made this year.

The circular sets expectations for governance, accountability, and data protection inside government agencies. What makes it interesting beyond the bureaucratic layer is who else it touches: private sector vendors that build or supply AI systems to government offices are now expected to meet the same ethical standards. In other words, if your startup sells an AI chatbot to a local government unit, or your firm builds a fraud-detection model for a national agency, you inherit the same accountability the government just gave itself.

Why this matters more than another “AI adoption” headline

The Philippines has spent the last two years being described, fairly, as a fast adopter and a slow builder — quick to plug in generative AI tools, slower to build the guardrails and domestic capability around them. This circular is one of the first moves that flips that script: instead of chasing adoption, it starts governing it.

It also lands in a year already crowded with AI policy activity — an AI Infrastructure Master Plan, the DICT’s State of the Nation in AI event in January, and a nationwide AI literacy push through basic education. Taken together, these are the early scaffolding of what a “Filipino framework for AI” might actually look like: not a single sweeping law, but a stack of smaller, sector-specific rules built one agency at a time.

The ethics community was asking for this

Grassroots groups like AI and Data Ethics PH have been pushing exactly this kind of principles-first, accountability-first approach for years — arguing that ethics can’t be an afterthought bolted onto AI systems after they’re already deployed to millions of citizens. Dominic “Doc” Ligot, who serves as Director for AI Ethics and Data Governance at the Philippine AI Business Association, has been one of the clearest voices on this point: the risk isn’t AI itself, it’s unregulated “shadow AI” deployments that expose ordinary Filipinos before anyone has agreed on the rules.

Doc is the featured speaker at AI Talks @ Younifest, where he regularly unpacks developments like this one in plain language — what they mean for builders, policymakers, and everyday users alike. If you want to go deeper on where Philippine AI governance is headed, his upcoming webinars are the place to start; details are at https://aitalks.younifest.com.

AI isn’t coming. It’s here.

A government circular about “principles-based frameworks” might not sound like news you’d stop scrolling for. But this is exactly how AI accountability actually gets built — not in one dramatic law, but in circulars, procurement clauses, and agency guidelines that quietly decide who’s responsible when an algorithm gets something wrong. The Philippines just wrote one more page of that rulebook.

Further Reading:

About Doc Ligot:

Dominic “Doc” Ligot is one of the leading voices in AI in the Philippines. Doc has been extensively cited in local and global media outlets including The Economist, South China Morning Post, Washington Post, and Agence France Presse. His award-winning work has been recognized and published by prestigious organizations such as NASA, Data.org, Digital Public Goods Alliance, the Group on Earth Observations (GEO), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the World Health Organization (WHO), and UNICEF.

If you need guidance or training in maximizing AI for your career or business, reach out to Doc via https://docligot.com.

Follow Doc Ligot on Facebook: https://facebook.com/docligotAI

Philippines Charts Its Own Path on AI Law — And Two Bills Lead the Way

, , , , , ,

Two bills, 23 proposals, and one big question: what would a Filipino AI law actually look like?

The Weekly Headline: Philippines Charts Its Own Path on AI Law

While much of the world borrows AI governance language from the EU AI Act or the US executive orders, Manila is trying something different: writing rules that fit a country of over 7,000 islands, a BPO-dependent workforce, and an economy betting big on AI to add trillions of pesos in GDP by 2030.

Twenty-three bills, two frontrunners

Dominic “Doc” Ligot, Director for AI Ethics and Data Governance at the Philippine AI Business Association, recently reviewed 23 AI-related bills filed in the House of Representatives and narrowed the field to two: House Bills 13 and 658. Both share a similar backbone — a Bill of Rights structure, a whole-of-government apparatus running from the Department of Science and Technology and the Department of Information and Communications Technology down to the Commission on Human Rights, and a proposed Philippine Council on Artificial Intelligence under DICT to oversee governance, a code of ethics for developers, and a regulatory sandbox for testing new systems safely.

Where the bills agree — and where it matters

Both bills draw a hard line on lethal autonomous weapons systems, banning them outright, and prohibit AI that causes “unjustifiable damage.” HB 13 goes further on labor protections: workers displaced by automation would be entitled to separation pay of at least one month per year of service, with the Department of Labor and Employment tasked to help them find new work. In a country where millions of jobs sit in BPO and back-office work — sectors AI is already reshaping — that provision isn’t abstract policy. It’s a direct response to where automation is expected to bite hardest.

Why this is happening now

The timing isn’t coincidental. The Philippines holds the ASEAN chair in 2026 and has made “AI as the Future of ASEAN” its regional theme, pairing an AI Infrastructure Master Plan with workforce programs training over a million Filipinos in AI literacy. Getting domestic AI law right isn’t just internal housekeeping — it’s part of the country’s pitch to lead responsible AI adoption across Southeast Asia.

Doc Ligot has been a consistent voice pushing that conversation toward substance over slogans, and he’s the featured speaker at AI Talks @ Younifest, where he regularly unpacks exactly this kind of policy detail in upcoming webinars — worth a look if you want the nuance behind the headlines.

AI isn’t coming. It’s here.

Whichever bill — or hybrid of the two — eventually passes, the direction is clear: the Philippines wants AI governance that reflects Filipino labor realities, not just imported frameworks. That’s a meaningfully different starting point than most countries have taken.

Further Reading

About Doc Ligot:

Dominic “Doc” Ligot is one of the leading voices in AI in the Philippines. Doc has been extensively cited in local and global media outlets including The Economist, South China Morning Post, Washington Post, and Agence France Presse. His award-winning work has been recognized and published by prestigious organizations such as NASA, Data.org, Digital Public Goods Alliance, the Group on Earth Observations (GEO), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the World Health Organization (WHO), and UNICEF.

If you need guidance or training in maximizing AI for your career or business, reach out to Doc via https://docligot.com.

Follow Doc Ligot on Facebook: https://facebook.com/docligotAI

daily-post-image

Bacolod Just Showed What AI Governance Looks Like Outside Manila

, , , ,

More than 1,000 delegates packed Bacolod’s SMX Convention Center for a five-day AI summit — and Doc Ligot closed it with a hard question: who governs AI once it leaves the capital?

The Weekly Headline: Bacolod Just Showed What AI Governance Looks Like Outside Manila

A five-day AI summit, far from Manila

From July 20 to 24, the SMX Convention Center in Bacolod City hosted “TRAIN 2026: AI & Innovation Networking Week,” drawing more than 1,000 delegates, speakers, exhibitors, and volunteers. Organized by former DICT undersecretary Jocelle Batapa-Sigue through the Philippine ICT Innovation Network, the event covered everything from digital infrastructure and enterprise adoption to tourism tech, fintech, and — on the final day — AI governance and public trust.

That last part matters. Most AI conversations in the Philippines happen in Metro Manila boardrooms. TRAIN 2026 deliberately moved the discussion to the Negros Island Region, asking a harder question: what does responsible AI adoption look like for a province, not just a country?

Doc Ligot closes with the governance question

On the conference’s final day, CirroLytix founder Dominic “Doc” Ligot took the stage to discuss the governance mechanisms needed to protect the public while still letting organizations build and deploy AI systems. He later joined Batapa-Sigue for a closing roundtable on what should happen after the conference ends — training programs, startup support, policy initiatives, and digital jobs that actually reach the Negros Island Region.

It’s a theme Doc has pushed for years through AI and Data Ethics PH, the grassroots community he founded to examine AI’s societal consequences, and through his role chairing the AI Ethics and Safety Committee of the Philippine AI Business Association. The Bacolod forum also featured CirroLytix CEO Claire Tayco, who presented a framework for assessing the AI readiness of institutions and regions — a practical tool for exactly the kind of regional rollout the conference was pushing for.

Why “countryside AI” is the harder problem

Building an AI pilot in Manila is comparatively easy: reliable connectivity, deep talent pools, and enterprise budgets. Bacolod’s organizers flagged the real friction points — telecom infrastructure reaching outlying towns, MSMEs and agricultural enterprises adopting tools without dedicated IT staff, and workforce transformation in a region where the outsourcing industry itself is being reshaped by AI. Sessions on disaster preparedness and smart-city systems for local government rounded out a conference that treated AI less as a shiny new tool and more as infrastructure that needs governance before it needs scale.

AI isn’t coming. It’s here.

Conferences like TRAIN 2026 are a reminder that the AI conversation in the Philippines isn’t just about which model is smartest — it’s about whether the governance, connectivity, and training reach the people outside the capital who’ll actually use these tools. Doc Ligot is one of the people making sure that question gets asked out loud.

Want to hear more of his thinking directly? Doc is the featured speaker at AI Talks @ Younifest, with upcoming webinars digging into exactly these questions of AI ethics and governance. Details at https://aitalks.younifest.com.

Further Reading

About Doc Ligot:

Dominic “Doc” Ligot is one of the leading voices in AI in the Philippines. Doc has been extensively cited in local and global media outlets including The Economist, South China Morning Post, Washington Post, and Agence France Presse. His award-winning work has been recognized and published by prestigious organizations such as NASA, Data.org, Digital Public Goods Alliance, the Group on Earth Observations (GEO), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the World Health Organization (WHO), and UNICEF.

If you need guidance or training in maximizing AI for your career or business, reach out to Doc via https://docligot.com.

Follow Doc Ligot on Facebook: https://facebook.com/docligotAI

Load More