De La Salle University (DLSU) won top place in a 24-hour hackathon with a speech-enabled business app, emerging as champion in the Metro Manila leg of the Byte Forward Hackathon.
The app delivers sales and inventory insights, offers smart pricing and bundling suggestions, integrates AI-powered Q&A, and features an auto-ordering system.
Moreover, the event was organized by the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI), the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), Converge SME Solutions, and Rev21 Labs during the Metro Manila Business Conference (MMBC), held at Seda Vertis North in Quezon City from August 7 to 8, 2025.
The competition brought together 10 student teams from top universities across Metro Manila to develop technology-based solutions addressing real business challenges posed by PCCI members and Converge SME partners.
The problems were designed to ensure the outputs were both innovative and directly applicable to actual operational needs.
Meanwhile, Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) secured second place with a voice-command sales and stock logging tool paired with an analytics dashboard, created for micro and small businesses, including live sellers.
In third place was the Asian Institute of Management (AIM), whose team developed a web portal that uses optical character recognition and data clustering to provide micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) with pricing recommendations based on competitor data.
The winners received cash prizes of ₱50,000 for first place, ₱30,000 for second place, and ₱20,000 for third place. Both the first and second place teams also earned 12 months of free internet service.
Furthermore, PCCI President Consul Enunina V. Mangio commended the participants for their creativity in addressing real-world business challenges, emphasizing that the hackathon aligns with PCCI’s advocacy to harness innovation in strengthening MSMEs and bridging the digital gap.
“This hackathon proves that when we empower young minds with real business challenges, they rise to the occasion with creativity and purpose,” Mangio said.
The winning teams will advance to the national finals at the 51st Philippine Business Conference and Expo on October 21–22 at the SMX Convention Center in Manila, where the Byte Forward Hackathon’s national champion will be named.
