Abigail Aquino has a background  in Advertising and Marketing with a hint of tech. She spent my entire 20's building her passive income online through building websites. Abigail was a late bloomer with her education and shifted courses 3 times, from Software Development to Physical Therapy to finally Advertising. She's recently come to terms with living with my anxiety and how she can utilize that anxious energy into something positive and how she can grow for it. She's on a mission to become my own best friend by traveling the world and just simply doing things alone instead of waiting for other people. Ever since then, her life has completely changed from waiting for people to say "yes" to her and she started saying "yes" to herself. She is a firm believer in "If opportunity does not knock, build the door."

Follow her on Instagram to find out more about her.

Atty. Kenneth Varona began his professional life practicing in Manila in the field of Immigration and Intellectual Property Law. He would for reasons of family and enterprise transfer from Manila to Cebu where he would embark on the journey to becoming a solo practitioner. This came with its own set of challenges. He decided to go the middle road where he would both practice law for himself while working for a large multi-national company. In Ken's spare time he reads on his interests Bitcoin and pays close attention to the social effects of important world events like the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Kenneth Isaiah Ibasco Abante (Ken) is an organizer, researcher, and teacher who believes in the power of people’s collective action. He believes that we can change any broken system if we study and work together to build collective solutions. He is currently employed with the WeSolve Foundation as its Managing Director for practice and partnerships, a part-time Faculty in the Ateneo de Manila University where he teaches "Youth Leadership for Engaged Citizenship" at the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies, a consultant for International Organizations such as the Asian Development Bank, alongside a laundry list of civil society and volunteer organizations where he strives to make the Philippines better. 

His academic achievements are stratospheric. He graduated cum laude and batch valedictorian in 2012 from ADMU. He'd subsequently work in government with the Department of Finance before going back to school to obtain a Masters in Public Administration in International Development from the Harvard Kennedy School. While in Harvard he'd go on to be awarded the Raymond Vernon Award for Commitment to International Development and Academic Excellence and the Outstanding Second Year Policy Analysis Award for "Minimizing Smuggling and Restoring Public Trust in the Philippine Bureau of Customs". 

In today's episode, we talk about the Bureau of Customs, the problem of traffic in Manila, the history of Martial Law and Ken's pick for the 17th President of the Republic of the Philippines, Leni Robredo. The online resources of the Martial Law Museum can be found here.

Luigi Cortes, at the time of this recording, is an MBA candidate at the Yale School of Management. Before making the leap to Yale, his academic background was in mathematics and he went on to have a career that intersected with local actuarial and risk management consultancy and investment management. He is currently pursuing a career in economics consulting which he talks about in an article here.

In today's episode, we talk abotu Finance, the difference between the Philippine securities market to that of the US and the pursuit of building up your human capital.

Markus Schindler is the best friend of Rami. He is currently employed as a International Capacity Development Advisor with FSD which is a Swiss International NGO specializing in mine action and the process of normalization. 

They met in college over beers where they exchanged many insights about how the world worked. He would find his way back to the Philippines where he'd begin a journey of taking on progressively more responsibility with FSD. He has worked in Ukraine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and our very own Cotabato City, Philippines in his time. In today's episode, we talk about his background in Philosophy, his work in an International NGO, the war in Afghanistan and the war in Ukraine.

Carl Graham is a director, creative, designer, voice over artist and father. He is well known for creating commercials for multi-nationals in the Philippines. In today's episode, he will talk about his life in the creative industry, the emerging technologies and the opportunities they present aspiring creatives, and the challenges of being a family man.

You can reach him through his website at carlgraham.xyz and an instagram.

Atty. Frances Estipona embodies the virtues of principled and diligent service. Her career has spanned NGO to government positions that thoroughly affect society and its appreciation of human rights and how we interact with the structures of power.

In today's episode she'll talk about all the different things that she did across the various hats she's worn. In the Human Rights Victims Claims Board, she assessed the claims of human rights victims on the strength of a dispassionate point system. In the Commission on Elections, she was able to peek behind the curtain at the mundane aspects of working in a collegial body like COMELEC to decide election controversies. Currently, with the Commission on Human Rights, she ensures that persons deprived of liberty have their human rights respected.

Atty. Carlo Africa, or "Af" as his friends like to call him, is an active collaborator of the Legal Network for Truthful Elections (LENTE) and the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Hirayang Kabataan an NGO that specializes in raising the level of youth involvement in the election process. Impressively, Af plans to make the next 20 of his life about trying to bring the Philippines to a better place politically.

In this episode, Af talks to us about what it means to be engaged in the political process in the Philippines both as a youth volunteer and for the general population, the laws that surround our Sangguniang Kabataan and our elections, and the 2022 Presidential Elections.

Taishi really embodies the wandering artist. He has been a photographer in all four corners of the globe. He shot night clubs in Japan. High fashion in Los Angeles. He does marketing shoots in Cebu. He even held a camera on the high seas. His journey is long and foreign to someone like me who has taken a very determined path as a lawyer. Nonetheless, I was impressed with the candor with which Taishi talks about his trials and tribulations.