Friday, March 29, 2024

Pasig City, US Embassy, Limitless Lab to hold ‘Bayanivation’

The city government of Pasig, the US Embassy in the Philippines, and Limitless Lab is piloting an initiative called “Bayanivation” on March 1 at Tanghalang Pasigueno.

Bayanivation aims to spark innovation in public service design and delivery in local government units (LGUs).

The 2018 Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) placed the Philippines at a percentile rank of 56.73 in terms of government effectiveness. Corruption also worsened in the Philippines last year, according to the Corruptions Perception Index (CPI), dropping its ranking from 85th in 2018 to 111th in 2019.

“Government really has no choice but to innovate – focus on human-centered policies and use emerging technologies, especially today when we are confronted by so many issues worldwide,” said Joie Cruz, founder and CEO of Limitless Lab.

A former government employee-turned-social entrepreneur, Cruz said she hopes Bayanivation can help ignite the movement for better public service design and delivery in the country by piloting it in progressive LGUs.

More than 500 participants composed of policymakers, industry partners, startup founders, youth, and Pasig City citizens will attend the event. Bayanivation will feature speakers including Pasig City mayor Vico Sotto, National Youth Commission assistant secretary Paul Pangilinan, and Development Academy of the Philippines president Jojo Caronan.

“Bayanivation is one of the many Embassy-supported initiatives that empower emerging Filipino leaders to create innovative solutions to community challenges. Investing in human capital development in the Philippines, especially for emerging leaders, is some of the most important work we do at the Embassy,” said Philip Roskamp, public affairs counselor of the US Embassy in the Philippines.

Aside from local government innovation, the event will also feature national government officials who will talk about their innovative initiatives that can shape the future of governance in the country.

Department of Trade and Industry assistant secretary Jean Pacheco, National Economic and Development Authority assistant secretary Carlos Bernardo Abad Santos, and former undersecretary Monchito Ibrahim of the Department of Information and Communications Technology are also joining the event.

Prior to the Town Hall meeting, selected Youth Fellows and LGU personnel will undergo an innovation boot camp on February 28 – 29. Using design thinking, participants will co-create solutions for Pasig City.

The main focus area for the innovation boot camp is: “How might we reimagine the Pasig City Mega Market?”  To come up with citizen-centered solutions, the participants will experience actual fieldwork, ideation, pitching, and mentoring sessions.

“Sometimes it takes other people, especially those outside City Hall, to come up with innovative ideas on age-old problems. Bayanivation is a way for the City Hall to ‘crowdsource’ ways of imagining and re-imagining Pasig City’s iconic Mega Market,” said Sotto.

Believing that the future of governance is the government with the people, Bayanivation aims to spark civic innovation and digital transformation in local governments in the Philippines. It also encourages the youth to be innovators and collaborate with the local government in solving pressing problems in their community.

Bayanivation, a portmanteau of the words “bayan”, “bayani” and “innovation,” is fully supported by the US Embassy through the 2019 US Alumni Engagement Innovation Fund (AIEDF) by the US State Department in Washington DC.

Bayanivation will also be piloted in Sipalay City and Del Carmen, Siargao.

For more information on the full schedule and to join the event, visit www. bayanivation.com/pasig or email hello@bayanivation.com.

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