[Good Business] Classes from Asia 21, Palawan, and the way forward for enterprise management

When was the final time you entered a room and felt the load of accountability and chance on the identical time?

As an Asia 21 fellow this yr, I requested myself this as I walked into the Asia 21 Subsequent Technology Fellows Summit this December 5 to 7 held in Manila, my first gathering as a part of the 2025 cohort. I had imagined the second for years. Again in faculty, I bear in mind studying about Asia 21 Fellows who had been shaping coverage, constructing communities, and difficult programs. I adopted their tales like a pupil learning constellations which are seen, distant, however guiding. And immediately, there I used to be, not simply trying up on the stars however assembly them, studying with them, and realizing I now shared the accountability to shine.

The summit, organized by Asia Society Philippines and led by Natalie Ching Jorge, Doris Magsaysay Ho, and Fernando Zobel De Ayala, was a strong reminder that management isn’t a title, it’s a lifelong apply of braveness, humility, and repair. Standing beside co-fellows I had solely ever examine (together with my 2025 co-fellow Filipino classmate Kenneth Abante), I felt the quiet thrill of belonging to a circle of people that nonetheless consider that change is feasible, that establishments can evolve, and that communities deserve leaders who pay attention as a lot as they act.

The Asia Society web site framed our choice as a recognition of brave management. However for me, it felt extra like an invite: now that you’re right here, what is going to you do with this house?

Palawan: The place fellowship meets fieldwork

The query adopted me all the best way to Palawan for the Asia 21 journey caravan. And as if the universe wished to insist on a solution, it despatched us two Filipino Asia 21 Fellows whose journeys may fill whole books. 

Amina Swananpoel (Class of 2011), govt director of Roots of Well being, has devoted her life to reproductive rights, dignity, and girls’s well being in Palawan, a piece that’s hardly ever glamorous however all the time life-changing. Strolling by their clinic and group areas felt like stepping inside a dwelling manifesto of compassion. Her work reminds us that improvement shouldn’t be measured in spectacular metrics however in whether or not individuals really feel safer, more healthy, and extra human.

Then there was Quintin Pastrana (Class of 2008), somebody I had lengthy admired from afar for his clear vitality advocacy and his management in Sabang Renewable Vitality Company. Seeing Sabang’s microgrid in particular person, an award-winning mannequin of hybrid renewable energy, was grounding. Quintin didn’t simply discuss local weather options; he constructed one in a spot the place vitality as soon as meant diesel, darkness, or none in any respect.

Quintin and I had the prospect to briefly discuss collaboration for local weather options, a dialog that felt much less like planning and extra like anchoring shared values. He additionally talked about one thing that delighted me: the capstone of Asian Institute Administration MDM graduates — Carl Vincent Gapasin, Xien Palacios and Novee Nalica. Their analysis explores how photo voltaic panels can coexist with agriculture, a subject that mirrors the very spirit of Sabang’s hybrid programs.

Realizing about their educational work intersects with real-world vitality transitions jogged my memory that the pipeline of Filipino local weather innovators is stronger than we predict. Generally, all they want is a platform, and mentors like Quintin who’re prepared to raise them into the dialog.

From Palawan to the boardroom

What will we educate in enterprise faculty, actually?

Two weeks earlier than Palawan and the Summit, I stepped into one other room, this time as keynote speaker on the Nationwide Enterprise Administration Convention of De La Salle College and the Philippine Academy of Administration. It was a gathering of students, deans, researchers, and college students. And in my thoughts, I carried the faces of farmers I work with, entrepreneurs making an attempt to outlive, and group leaders who measure success in meals fed, hectares restored, or goals made attainable.

So, I requested the room a query I ask myself typically: Will we educate enterprise to make revenue, or will we educate enterprise to make impression?

This wasn’t rhetorical. It was an invite to rethink the programs that form younger leaders on the very starting of their trajectories. For many years, enterprise schooling has been framed round competitors, market share, and backside strains. However in a world going through local weather breakdown, inequity, and fragility, what sort of leaders are we producing if we don’t anchor the curriculum in justice, sustainability, and human dignity?

In my keynote, I shared what we now have been constructing by Varacco, ThinnkFarm, and our Good FARM and Good CAFE tasks: that companies could be worthwhile and transformative; that know-how — IoT, drones, nano-biofertilizers — could be democratized for farmers; that progress could be regenerative, not extractive.

Platforms just like the Nationwide Enterprise Administration Convention and PAoM matter as a result of they create house for dialogue. They permit professors, researchers, and practitioners to ask uncomfortable questions, interrogate outdated frameworks, and co-design future-ready fashions. Amid the complexity of our time, these areas remind us that enterprise can nonetheless be a pressure for good, if we deliberately educate it that approach.

A journey of shared function

Trying again, the previous weeks felt like a single arc stitched throughout three areas: A summit corridor in Manila, the place younger leaders gathered with readability and conviction. A microgrid in Palawan, reminding me of what local weather options appear to be once they attain the individuals who want them most. A convention stage in De La Salle, the place I stood earlier than lecturers and requested them, and myself — what sort of leaders we should nurture for the following decade. (READ: Supporting social enterprises with a function: Ought to we?)

In each house, one theme emerged: brave management shouldn’t be about being the neatest particular person within the room; it’s about being essentially the most accountable to the longer term. Assembly Amina re-centered me on dignity. Studying from Quintin re-energized me on local weather motion. Seeing the brilliance of AIM graduates like Carl, Xien, and Novee jogged my memory that the following technology is already experimenting with the concepts that can outline the Philippines’ sustainable future. And talking to educators and students challenged me to think about a enterprise panorama the place younger entrepreneurs shouldn’t have to decide on between revenue and function, as a result of the ecosystem teaches them to combine each.

So, what now?

I return to the query I requested on the summit: Now that you’re right here, what is going to you do with this house? For me, the reply is easy: maintain constructing, maintain convening, continue learning, and maintain connecting the threads, between fellows and farmers, between vitality programs and schooling, between analysis and actual life.

Areas like Asia 21, Roots of Well being, Sabang’s microgrid, and the nationwide enterprise convention should not simply occasions; they’re reminders that progress is collaborative. That no chief strikes alone. That the world is held up by communities of individuals quietly doing the work, even when the world shouldn’t be watching. And if there may be something this season has taught me, it’s this: “Hope shouldn’t be a sense. It’s a apply. And brave management is one in every of its fiercest types.” – Rappler.com

Ariestelo Asilo is lately named an Asia 21 Subsequent Technology Fellow 2025. He’s the President and CEO of www.varacco.com and www.thinnkfarm.com which function by social entrepreneurship promoting Purchase 1 Take 1 Espresso, and creating farmer-scientists in espresso manufacturing in Mindanao. At the moment, he’s taking his Doctorate in Sustainability on the College of the Philippines-Open College. He additionally has a cat named Libe which he discovered on the Liberica farm in Cavite. telo@varacco.com