CITY OF SAN FERNANDO, PAMPANGA — The future of local public service is being coded by the youth. In an aggressive push to future-proof the provincial capital, student IT innovators from across the city's premiere colleges went head-to-head to build real-world software applications explicitly engineered to digitize city government workflows. Led by City Youth Development Officer and Acting City ICT Officer Kim John Sagun, the hackathon was designed to fulfill Mayor Vilma Balle-Caluag's mandate: to harness homegrown youth creativity and bridge the technical skills of students directly with actual community pain points.
The Champion: Revolutionizing Early Childhood Care
The ultimate victory belonged to the University of the Assumption's Team OnePeak, whose winning prototype, ANAC, acts as a seamless digital solution built for the City Social Welfare and Development Office. The software streamlines tracking, records management, and developmental milestones for the city's Early Childhood Care and Development systems, ensuring preschool learners receive targeted welfare and educational interventions. The University of the Assumption has demonstrated consistent excellence in technology competitions, recently emerging as Overall Champion at the 2026 Regional Assembly on Information Technology Education, where its students swept the Hackathon category including Best User Experience, Best Tech Implementation, and the championship title. "By giving our students actual municipal challenges to solve, we are turning local classrooms into incubation labs for our city's digital transformation," the City Government of San Fernando CICTO stated.
Vetted by Industry Leaders
To ensure the applications met strict enterprise, legal, and engineering standards, the prototypes were audited by a powerhouse panel of judges including Atty. James Francis Villanueva, Assistant Regional Director of DICT Region III, who has been instrumental in advancing digital infrastructure initiatives across Central Luzon including the national broadband program in San Fernando. The panel also included Eliezer Rabadon, CEO of DvCode Technologies, Inc., a recognized technology leader who has shared his expertise at forums including the Philippine Blockchain Week and Regional ITE 2026. Standing alongside the champions in the elite winner's circle were outstanding innovation teams from the City College of San Fernando Pampanga, which recently improved its standing in the Times Higher Education Impact Rankings 2026 and remains the only local college in Pampanga included in the global rankings. By validating these student codes under corporate and state standards, the City of San Fernando is laying down a scalable blueprint—proving that the fastest way to build a responsive, paperless, and efficient smart-city ecosystem is to trust the brilliant young minds within its own borders.
