Last year, I became part of a project built around something I’ve believed in for a long time: digital education can create real economic opportunity.

That project was Project WISE — Work Smarter, Market Smarter with AI, an AI Training project for students and businesses, led by JCI Malagos Davao.

This year, Project WISE was recognized as Best JCI RISE Project at the Mindanao Agung Awards during the JCI Agung Awards.

And knowing what JCI RISE actually stands for makes this recognition particularly meaningful to me.

What does it mean to be a JCI RISE project?

RISE stands for Rebuild, Invest, Sustain, Evolve.

Junior Chamber International created the initiative to help communities respond to economic and social challenges. Today, its focus includes supporting businesses and entrepreneurs, equipping people with future-ready skills, and building stronger, more resilient economies and workforces. Junior Chamber International

The Best JCI RISE Project award isn’t simply about conducting a successful event.

JCI describes the category as recognizing projects that contribute significantly to economic resilience and help make workforces and economies more robust for the future. Junior Chamber International

And when I look back at what we tried to accomplish with Project WISE, I think that’s the part of the story I’m proudest of.

We weren’t teaching AI simply because AI was the newest thing everyone was talking about.

We were trying to give people skills they could actually use.

We wanted AI training to reach more than one kind of learner

One thing I particularly liked about Project WISE was that it didn’t treat AI training as something meant only for people already working in technology.

At Lyceum of the Philippines University – Davao, our program reached nearly 600 students in the morning session.

We talked about the responsible use of AI and what these technologies could mean for their future careers.

Then the conversation changed in the afternoon.

More than 20 MSMEs and business professionals joined us to talk about practical applications of AI in business and marketing. I demonstrated how AI could go beyond generating captions or images and become part of actual business systems, from marketing automation and advertising to lead handling and everyday workflows.

Through Hour of Code, in partnership with Google.org, the education component also reached students, including learners from JoJi Ilagan Business School (JIB).

That combination matters to me.

Students are preparing to enter a workforce that will look very different from the one I entered.

Entrepreneurs and MSMEs, meanwhile, are trying to adapt right now, often without the teams, budgets or technical resources available to larger companies.

They need different things from AI education.

But both need access to it.

Digital marketing education has been an advocacy of mine for years

AI may be the technology we’re talking about today, but the advocacy behind this project isn’t new for me.

I’ve worked in digital marketing since 2008.

I’ve watched businesses learn why they needed websites. Then social media. Then digital advertising. Marketing automation. Data and analytics.

And now AI.

Every major shift creates opportunities, but I’ve also seen how easily those opportunities become concentrated among the people and businesses that already have access to knowledge, technology and expertise.

That’s one reason digital marketing education has become an important part of the work I do.

I love consulting. I love actually doing the work through CoffeeBot Solutions.

But I also believe that part of being a practitioner is sharing what we learn.

When I teach entrepreneurs, I don’t expect them to leave the room and become digital marketing specialists.

When I teach students about AI, I don’t expect them all to become AI experts.

I want them to understand enough to participate.

To know what’s possible.

To ask better questions.

To recognize when something could help their business or career.

And just as importantly, to recognize when the technology is being oversold.

Future-ready doesn’t just mean knowing how to use ChatGPT

This is something I think is particularly important when we talk about the “future-ready skills” at the heart of JCI RISE.

The tools we’re teaching today will change.

Some of the AI platforms we’re excited about now may not even exist a few years from now. Features that seem revolutionary today will eventually become ordinary.

So teaching someone a list of prompts isn’t enough.

Future-readiness, to me, is the ability to adapt when the tools change.

It’s understanding enough about technology to evaluate it critically, learn it when it’s useful, and apply it to a real problem.

For a student, that might mean understanding how AI can support their work without outsourcing their thinking to it.

For an entrepreneur, it might mean recognizing which parts of the business can genuinely benefit from automation, and which still require human judgment.

For a marketer, it means understanding that AI is another major change in an industry that has never stopped changing.

That is much more durable than knowing which button to click.

Why I think Project WISE was worth doing

It’s tempting to measure a training program by how many people attended.

And reaching hundreds of students is something worth celebrating.

But I think the better measure is what access to that knowledge can eventually enable.

A student who becomes more prepared for an AI-influenced workplace.

An entrepreneur who realizes there is a better way to run part of the business.

A small business owner who finally understands a technology that previously felt inaccessible.

An educator who can continue the conversation with another group of students.

Those individual changes are small.

But collectively, that’s how you begin building a workforce and a business community that is better equipped for what’s coming next.

And that’s why learning more about what JCI RISE represents made this particular award mean even more to me.

This one feels personal

I’m grateful to JCI Malagos Davao, Google.org, Lyceum of the Philippines University – Davao, JIB, CoffeeBot Solutions, and all the organizations and people who helped make this work possible.

I’m grateful to the students who asked questions, the entrepreneurs who came ready to figure out how these technologies could actually work in their businesses, and the educators and organizers who made space for these conversations.

And I’m very proud that Project WISE is now a Best JCI RISE Project.

Not because we held an AI training event.

But because behind the technology was something much more important:

Education. Access. Adaptability. Opportunity.

I’ve spent a large part of my career trying to make digital marketing and technology a little easier for people to understand.

AI is simply the newest chapter of that work.

And this award makes me want to keep going.

Interested in AI Training for Your Team or Organization?

I also conduct AI training for businesses, schools, organizations, and professional groups, with sessions designed around practical, responsible ways to use AI in real work.

Training can be tailored to your audience, from understanding AI and using it more effectively, to applying it in digital marketing, content, research, automation, and everyday business workflows.

If you’re looking for an AI training session for your team, organization, or community, feel free to contact me. I’d be happy to discuss what would be most useful for your group.