Mr. Emil Tapnio currently serves as the Senior Youth Leadership Development Specialist at The Asia Foundation. Mr. Tapnio has over 15 years of technical and management experience in designing and implementing interventions in education, economic empowerment, and human rights, focusing on youth political participation and social involvement.

To date, his program portfolio funding counts over US$50 million from USAID, the US Department of State, Australian Aid, UNDP, and the Philippine Government. Since earning a degree in Public Administration from the University of the Philippines-Diliman, Mr. Tapnio has championed innovative leadership in the development sector. He regularly conducts trainings and workshops for youth leaders and has presented on youth leadership, entrepreneurship, and technology at the United Nations Headquarters in New York and Bangkok; the World Bank, the US Department of State, the US Congressional Youth Leadership Forum in Washington, D.C; and numerous universities in the US and the Philippines.

In 2018, he completed his Professional Fellowship by the US Department of State’s Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative (YSEALI) in Hawaii and Washington DC, USA. In 2016, he was appointed as one of the Global Ambassadors of the International Young Leaders Assembly at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City.

Ms. Russell Pili is the Chief Technology Transfer Officer of PCIEERD and a DOST Patent Agent. She has more than 15 years’ experience in sectoral management, R&D roadmapping and stakeholder management. Have 7 years involvement in policy formulation, which includes policies in IP and technology transfer, roadmapping methodologies, market validation designs, university spin offs and technology assessment protocols.

Ms. Pili’s specialization involves shepherding and coaching university research teams through special mentorship sessions which resulted to the launch of several university spin offs for the last 2 years based on the PCIEERD Commercialization Framework, also developed by her team.

She is a chemist by profession but earned her Masters of Law degree in Intellectual Property (LLM) from the University of Torino, Turin, Italy and also a Master’s degree in Technology Management from the University of the Philippines.

The PCIEERD programs under her wings are the Technology Business Incubation Program, Higher Education Institution Readiness for Innovation and Technopreneurship (HEIRIT), Startup Research Grant Program, Funding Assistance for Spin-off and Translation of Research in Advancing Commercialization (FASTRAC) and IP Management Program for Academic Institutions Commercializing Technologies (IMPACT).

Luis Sison is a professor at the Electrical and Electronics Engineering Institute of the University of the Philippines Diliman, director of the UP system Technology Transfer and Business Development Office, and the program leader of the DOST-UP Enterprise Center for Technopreneurship and UPscale Innovation Hub. He was vice-chancellor for research and development of UP Diliman from 2006 to 2011 during which he established the Technology Transfer Office. He was awarded the Gawad Pangulo for Progressive Teaching and Learning by UP in 2015, and his course on innovation and technopreneurship got the Silver Award for Teaching Delivery at the 2016 Wharton-QS Stars Reimagine Education Awards. He was a visiting researcher at the University of California Berkeley as a Banatao Fellow. He holds an MS and PhD EE degree from Purdue University and a BS EE degree from UP Diliman. His research interests are biomedical instrumentation and education technology.