Theme: Deviate

TEDxUPLB is an event independently organized by a group of UPLB students through a license granted by TED, committed to expand the community's platform to share ideas inside and outside the university.

Deviate believes that ideas beyond the status quo are worth spreading and understanding. Going beyond the norms can help us bridge the gap to help us find innovative solutions to our problems. Deviate allows us to embrace realities and ideas that have not been explored, encouraging diverse people to speak out.

DL Umali Hall
University of the Philippines Los Baños
Los Baños, CALABARZON (Region IV-A), 4030
Philippines

Angeli Monique Siladan

Founder and Chief Storyteller, Qapwa

Angeli is the co-founder of Qapwa—a digital storytelling platform that challenges stereotypes towards Muslim Filipinos by producing narratives online, conducting offline dialogues, and training youth storytellers in Mindanao. Since 2015, she has led peacebuilding initiatives such as the Stories of Bangsamoro, TechCamp Philippines and the #MealforMarawi campaign in 2017 that fed at least 2000 refugees during the Marawi siege. She holds a masters degree in Technology Management from the University of the Philippines Diliman and has also spent the last 5 years working both in the government and private sector promoting youth participation and using technology for social good. She has widely spoken about her advocacy on gender equality, youth and peace at the United Nations HQ in New York, United States Institute of Peace in Washington DC, Japan, UK, Thailand and Denmark.

Daryl Pasion

Budding Ethnolinguist

Daryl Pasion is an assistant professor in language and culture in UP Los Baños. He earned his masters degree in Linguistics from UP Diliman. His researches delve into ethnolinguistics, a field of the discipline that explores the interrelationship between language and culture; one that explores the unique ways different ethnic groups perceive the world. His recent ethnolinguistic study explored the worldview on justice of an indigenous group in Kalinga to understand the incompatibility of the modern criminal law in the province. Daryl is most passionate about exploring worldviews of indigenous communities as he believes that there is so much knowlege and wisdom the modern world could learn from them. He aspires that one day more Filipinos would show much more interest in understanding social and cultural realities of the many ethnic groups in the Philippines.

Eric Paul Peralta

Gender Equality Advocate

At the onset, lawyers start out with no specialization or field of expertise. We are bound to know EVERYTHING. However, with my time in the academe plus the number of VAWC and rape cases brought to my legal practice, one cannot help but grow a fiery altruism and deep respect towards women's rights - most especially now that I am married to a wonderful woman and that I have a beautiful daughter. However, being a male, a gender carrying prejudice and bias in most gender-based violence and sexual harassment cases, I, too, felt a deeper and greater sense of gender empowerment. My spectrum started from protecting women and their children to protecting ALL GENDERS, which I believe, must be championed by anyone, especially by males - the so-called “harassers” and “abusers” of this era.

John Victor Canta

Millennial Queenologist

JV has always been curious and critical about the factors that form the predisposition of a Queen. Beyond the swimsuits and evening gowns, he carefully observes and analyzes the skills that separate the clappers from the Queens. He recently created the Millennial Queenologist Facebook page to encourage creative and critical thinking on social media. As a personality development trainer, his workshops and trainings are interactive, engaging, and deeply rooted in the performative arts and beauty pageants. His goal is to encourage Millennials and Gen Zs to develop a #TrueQueenMindset to help them cope with our highly disruptive and competitive society.

Jon Paul Maligalig

Educator and Gamer

Schools and parents have been battling the “scourge” of video games since they became a dominant medium and competed for young students’ attention. When Jon Maligalig discovered that he had been performing better in high school history because he played Sid Meier’s Civilization, he wondered if games could be used to teach “boring” subjects. Now a professor of educational technology, he has found that digital games benefit students not only with learning academic content but also with appreciating the process of learning itself. He emphasizes this with his own breed of game-based learning, ludoandragogy, where learners play games together instead of individually so that the process of learning becomes social, collaborative, and meaningful. He has recently started exploring how games can be used to help young people develop their capacities for critical thinking, social awareness, and social empathy.

Jun Yee

Installation Artist

Jun Yee, the Father of Installation Art, is a prominent international artist from the Philippines whose works revolve around painting, sculpting, and printmaking. He designed “Open Doors” monument for Israel Holocaust Memorial Park and established the first artist village in Baler. A former isko, he curated the 1st art gallery in the UP System and started the 1st sculpture garden and installation garden in UPLB and UP Diliman. In fact, he was awarded as the 2013 UPAA distinguished Alumni of Arts and UP Fine Arts Outstanding Alumni in the same year. He received Manila’s highest cultural award, Patnubay ng Sining at Karilangan for sculpture, and he is the only Filipino artist whose life story was made into musical by the CCP.

Mikey Bustos

Ants Canada

Mikey Bustos was born in Toronto, Canada and started raising ants and creating ant farms in his parents' basement. It led him to create the AntsCanada Youtube channel and AntsCanada.com, both promoting the pet ant keeping hobby, myrmecology, ecology, and habitat conservation. AntsCanada has since shipped hundreds of thousands of formicaria (ant farms) and ant keeping gear worldwide, contributed to scientific research, and consulted with agricultural companies and museums. Both AntsCanada and its products have been featured on the Discovery Channel and Animal Planet.

Reinabelle Reyes

Scientist and Educator

Dr. Reina Reyes is currently a Principal Scientist at UnitedHealth Group R&D and the host and resident scientist of “Science Says”, a new science education TV series produced by Knowledge Channel. She has a Ph.D. in Astrophysics from Princeton University and a Diploma in High Energy Physics from the International Center for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy. She has been called as “The Filipina who proved Einstein right” because of her notable work which confirmed Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity on a cosmic scale in 2010. Some of her accolades include the Richard Kaye Korn Prize, Centennial Fellowship and Martin Schwarzschild Graduate Fellowship, all from Princeton University, as well as the Chambliss Astronomy Achievement Student Award from the American Astronomical Society.

University of the Philippines Broadway Company N/A

musical theater and Broadway enthusiasts

UP Broadway Company is a non-political, non-sectarian, cultural organization, which seeks to promote musical theater as a means for service and empowerment to the Filipino people. It is a company of UPLB constituents from different fields who share passion and enthusiasm for musical theater.

William Ti

Principal Architect

William Ti Jr. graduated from the National University of Singapore with a Master's in Urban Design in 2012 and acquired his Bachelor's in Architecture from the University of Santo Tomas in 2002. He is the principal architect and founder of WTA Architecture and Design Studio. In the 15 years of his professional career, he has been able to lead the firm in winning various awards and gaining global recognition. He is a strong advocate of social architecture that promotes a more humanist and socially relevant practice of architecture