ILOILO CITY — On August 3–5, 2026, this UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy will host an entirely different kind of showcase—one built not on heirloom recipes but on artificial intelligence. The Department of Science and Technology-Western Visayas (DOST-6) is staging the second edition of the Artificial Intelligence Festival, more than doubling its program from four to nine sub‑events and extending invitations beyond Western Visayas to participants from across the ASEAN region. The expansion reflects a deliberate institutional bet that Iloilo—a city whose economic narrative has been dominated by outsourcing, real estate, and gastronomy—can add AI innovation to its portfolio.
“We are positioning AI Fest 2026 as a national and even an international event because we have invited participants not only from outside Western Visayas but also outside of the country, in particular the ASEAN countries,” said DOST-6 Regional Director Rowen Gelonga during the May 13 launch. The theme, “Building an AI-Ready Future, Together,” signals an ambition to anchor the country’s artificial intelligence conversation in Western Visayas. From a handful of conference rooms in 2025, the festival now occupies a three‑day calendar that spans hackathons, robotics workshops, policy labs, film screenings, and a game‑development expo—each component engineered to deepen the region’s AI ecosystem.
Nine Sub‑Events, One AI Roadmap
The program architecture is deliberately multi‑sectoral. The AI Technical Conference will feature plenary sessions on AI ethics, research presentations, and the latest industry trends from global leaders. The AI Hackathon, now open in both school‑based and open categories, challenges participants to build AI‑powered solutions targeting Western Visayas’ priority areas: the blue economy, tourism, and clean and renewable energy. Applications close on June 5, with the top five business ideas in each category advancing to mentorship and incubation support.
Five additional sub‑events extend AI into adjacent domains. SineAI returns after last year’s success, with pre‑event talks and workshops that explore the intersection of artificial intelligence and filmmaking—this year with a deliberate emphasis on cultural preservation. AI Game On! channels AI into competitive game design, while AI in Motion stages robotics workshops and contests. AI Speaks and AI Connect provide platforms for roundtable discussions and networking among businesses, government, policy officers, and sector advocates.
Rounding out the program are two new additions with structural significance. The Philippine GameDev Expo (PGDX) Iloilo–AI Expo will showcase cutting‑edge AI products, innovations, and local game‑development talent—placing Iloilo on a national stage previously dominated by Metro Manila. The AI Policy Lab, co‑organized with the Department of Economy, Planning, and Development (DEPDev) Region 6, focuses on inclusive AI adoption, explicitly inviting persons with disabilities, senior citizens, and Indigenous Peoples to bridge the digital divide. “As planners and as people in policy formulation, it is our task to bridge the digital divide,” said DEPDev senior economic development specialist Ira Pahila. “As we move forward with advancing AI technologies in the region, we also need to look back—who are left behind?”
From Harmful Algal Blooms to Full‑Blown Startups
The festival’s claim to relevance rests in part on what its first edition produced. Last year’s AI Hackathon yielded three winning models from West Visayas State University, all currently under incubation at the school’s Technology Business Incubator. One of them—the Harmful Algal Bloom Intelligent Observer Network, an AI‑powered early warning system for toxic algal blooms—has been adopted by the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources. “It is an application with the use of AI, but it is not yet a full‑blown business venture,” said Rayjand Gellamucho, Assistant Regional Manager of the Unified Movement in Western Visayas to Accelerate Startup and Spin‑off Development (UMWAD). “Once their business model becomes okay, they could be a full‑fledged startup by this year or next year.”
The two other incubated projects—DiaSight, a diabetic retinopathy risk‑screening tool that uses routine laboratory data, and GabayAni, an AI‑powered chatbot delivering localized agricultural guidance to smallholder rice farmers—demonstrate the range of challenges that Western Visayas‑based AI can address. Gellamucho hopes the models can eventually register with the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines, particularly as they present their work abroad. The hackathon’s design ensures that even the non‑winning entries receive support: all business ideas are connected to TBIs for possible funding, partner matching, and mentorship. “We will still connect them with TBIs for possible funding later on,” Gellamucho said. “They will be connected with the correct partners, consultants, and mentors to fully develop and test the correctness of the application.”
A Region That Wrote Its Own AI Governance Rules First
The AI Fest 2026 is built on a regulatory foundation that no other Philippine region has replicated. Last year’s inaugural festival saw the Regional Development Council‑6 launch the country’s first AI Governance and Ethics Policy—a document designed to anchor every AI activity in Western Visayas on responsible use. DOST-6 Assistant Regional Director for Technical Operations Keithlyn Sarah Bernardino noted that the 2026 edition arrives with deeper partnerships and a larger program. “We expanded our partnerships. Other than that, from four sub‑events, we have nine sub‑events this year, so it will be jam‑packed,” she said.
The festival’s collaborative architecture is as instructive as its programming. Partners include the Iloilo Science and Technology University, West Visayas State University, the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry–Western Visayas, the Iloilo Business Club, DevCon Visayas, the Game Developers Association of the Philippines, the Mechatronics and Robotics Society of the Philippines, the BINHI Technology Business Incubator, and Global Shapers Community Iloilo, among others. The roster spans academe, industry, civil society, and government—a quadruple helix that the DOST has deliberately cultivated. For Iloilo, whose property market already leads the Visayas‑Mindanao region with a 96‑percent house‑and‑lot take‑up rate and whose office transactions recently outpaced Metro Cebu, the AI Fest adds an innovation layer to an economic growth story that has been built largely on outsourcing, real estate, and tourism. The city is no longer merely a place to process back‑office transactions. It is becoming a place where the technologies that will automate those transactions are being built.
