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| The girls of Baclayan Mangyan School, guided by Stairway coordinators and volunteers, spent an afternoon learning basic coding skills to power up their robot kits. |
"Our goal is to bring technology to where it is needed most," said Frei Sangil, President and Founder of LAYERTech Labs. "We strive to develop solutions that do not deepen existing social inequalities."
Community-Led Empowerment
The #TechForGood program achieves lasting impact through its grassroots approach, which ensures local leaders have the skills and knowledge to sustain educational efforts long after workshops conclude.
The recent robotics workshop was structured in three progressive phases:
- Train the Trainers: The initiative opened with a facilitator development session for Stairway Foundation officers and community coordinators from Baclayan. By assembling and coding robots themselves, these local leaders gained firsthand experience to guide participating students moving forward.
- Build from Scratch: On the second and third days, students completed intensive, collaborative work. Over several hours, they constructed robots entirely from basic components.
- Bring Creations to Life: Once assembly was complete, students connected their robot circuits to computers and applied fundamental coding logic to make their designs functional.
"This partnership falls under Stairway’s ICT Program, where I and our ICT volunteers here in Baclayan teach children basic computer literacy," explained Jonalyn Onde, Baclayan Development Officer at Stairway Foundation. She emphasized that these learning opportunities are critical to helping students prepare for high school and compete on equal footing with peers from more resourced schools.
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| Prior to teaching the children, LAYERTech first guided the community coordinators on robot assembly and software programming. |
Growing Alliance for Child Welfare
The Oriental Mindoro robotics workshop marks the latest milestone in the expanding partnership between Converge ICT Solutions and Stairway Foundation.
Working together since 2023, the collaboration began by delivering connectivity and digital tools—including donated tablets and computers—alongside active measures to protect children from Online Sexual Abuse and Exploitation of Children (OSAEC). Over time, the alliance has broadened to cover additional digital priorities: data privacy education, online fraud prevention, and now, closing gaps in tech education through robotics training.
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| LAYERTech Labs offer a whole suite of models for different learning groups but make sure to make these accessible to low-income sectors. |
Investing in young minds today demonstrates that building a truly digital nation requires more than laying fiber-optic infrastructure—it means coding a brighter, more equitable future for the next generation.


















