Philippine-made AI hiring platform wins regional award at ASOCIO Digital & AI Awards 2026

 

Filipino tech firm White Cloak Technologies is recognized for AI in Workforce & Future Skills in Asia-Oceania

MANILA, Philippines — A Philippine technology company has been recognized among the leading digital innovators in Asia and Oceania. White Cloak Technologies won the AI in Workforce & Future Skills award at the ASOCIO Digital & AI Awards 2026 for Jia, its AI-powered hiring platform.

The Asian-Oceanian Computing Industry Organization (ASOCIO) presented the award on October 6, 2026, at its Awards Ceremony & Gala Dinner at the Swissôtel Jakarta PIK Avenue in Indonesia. A White Cloak delegation accepted the award on behalf of the company. The ceremony was part of the ASOCIO Digital & AI Summit 2026, held October 5–7. The summit brought together technology leaders, innovators, investors, and policymakers from across the region.

ASOCIO is the regional federation of computing and IT industry associations in Asia and Oceania. Its awards honor organizations whose work advances the regional digital economy. ASOCIO Chairman Stan Singh-Jit said the recognition celebrates leadership and innovation that "exemplify the transformative impact of technology and serve as an inspiration to the wider community."

The win puts a Filipino-built AI product at the center of the regional conversation about AI and the future of work. Jia uses AI throughout hiring. It evaluates CVs against job requirements, runs conversational AI interviews with candidates, and gives recruiters structured insights to support their decisions. It also guides job seekers from application to offer.

The award reflects the growing strength of the Philippine software industry. Filipino companies increasingly design and build their own technology products for regional and global markets, not just provide services. White Cloak is a member of the Philippine Software Industry Association (PSIA), the country's representative to ASOCIO. Through its competitive nominations, PSIA puts Filipino technology companies in front of a regional audience.

The award falls under ASOCIO's M.A.D.E. (Mapping ASOCIO Digital Economy) initiative, which recognizes organizations driving digital transformation and sustainable growth across Asia and Oceania. White Cloak joins this year's group of recipients recognized for shaping the region's digital future.

About White Cloak Technologies

White Cloak Technologies is a Philippine software company that builds digital products and platforms, including Jia, an AI-powered hiring platform for job seekers and recruiters.

About ASOCIO

The Asian-Oceanian Computing Industry Organization (ASOCIO) is a regional federation of computing and IT industry associations in Asia and Oceania that works to advance the region's digital economy.

About White Cloak Technologies, Inc.

Homegrown to the Philippines, White Cloak Technologies is one of the country’s leading software development companies that has worked on globally recognized projects and technologies. Founded in 2014, White Cloak continues to be the innovation partner of choice for many major corporations, leveraging technology to take its client’s business to the next level. This technical superiority and commitment to our clients have brought numerous recognition and awards to White Cloak.

Miriam College, C&E ALS Partner to Expand Access to Skills-Based Learning Through Micro-Credentials

  

As demand grows for flexible, skills-focused education, Miriam College and C&E Adaptive Learning Solutions (C&E ALS) are collaborating to expand access to learning opportunities through micro-credentials, offering learners additional pathways to develop competencies alongside their academic and professional pursuits.

The partnership was formalized through a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) signed on October 22, 2026, bringing together Miriam College’s academic expertise and C&E ALS’s capabilities in educational content development, production, and digital distribution.

Under the agreement, Miriam College will develop course-related manuscripts and syllabi, while C&E ALS will oversee the design, layout, and editing of learning materials for publication and distribution via AsCEnd, an online learning platform developed by C&E ALS.

Micro-credentials offer learners additional opportunities to acquire new skills and strengthen existing competencies beyond conventional degree programs. These shorter, skills-focused courses complement traditional degree pathways, allowing individuals to pursue targeted learning alongside their existing academic or professional commitments. The flexible structure of micro-credentials lets learners study at their pace and on their own schedule, reinforcing the importance of continuous learning and empowering them to adapt to the ever-evolving demands of the workforce.

For higher education institutions, micro-credentials also present opportunities to expand their academic offerings to new learner segments, including working professionals seeking to upskill or reskill in response to changing industry requirements. 

Highlighting the value of micro-credentials, C&E ALS CEO John Emyl Eugenio said:

“Micro-credentials allow institutions to build on their academic strengths and offer focused, flexible learning experiences that respond to the needs of students, working professionals, and lifelong learners.”

In addition to developing workforce-relevant skills, micro-credentials may also help learners pursue further academic qualifications. Depending on institutional policies and assessment requirements, certain micro-credentials may be recognized for academic credit, allowing learners to apply their acquired knowledge and competencies toward eligible degree or diploma programs. 

This approach offers learners greater flexibility in pursuing educational goals, allowing them to build previously acquired knowledge and competencies while exploring opportunities for further study.

For C&E ALS and Miriam College, the partnership aims to broaden learning opportunities for students, working professionals, and lifelong learners from diverse backgrounds. By combining Miriam College’s academic expertise with C&E ALS’ digital learning solutions and services, the partnership aims to expand access to flexible, personalized learning opportunities that equip individuals with relevant skills and support their continued academic and professional growth.

About C&E Adaptive Learning Solutions

C&E Adaptive Learning Solutions (C&E ALS) is a Philippine learning solutions company that aims to make education more innovative, personalized, and accessible. Through print educational resources and digital learning platforms, C&E ALS supports institutions and individuals to promote meaningful learning experiences.

About AsCEnd Learning

AsCEnd Learning is an online platform offering globally competitive, short, stackable, and non-stackable micro-credentials developed by C&E Adaptive Learning Solutions in collaboration with OpenLearning. It empowers students and lifelong learners to pursue continuous education through flexible, specialized courses designed to boost workforce readiness and competence.

Kravos AI Launches Public Beta of Its Enterprise-Grade AI Agent Infrastructure Platform

  

Kravos AI has officially launched its public beta, opening access to its managed infrastructure platform for autonomous AI agents. Designed to eliminate the backend engineering required to productionize AI, Kravos unites managed knowledge ingestion, retrieval, skills, external tools, and multi-modal voice and chat runtimes into a single execution layer. Developers can even build, ground, and test agents directly from coding assistants like Cursor and Claude via open Model Context Protocol (MCP) support. Builders can start creating for free at kravos.ai.

Kravos AI today officially announced the public beta launch of its dedicated AI agent infrastructure platform, opening global access for developers, enterprises, and technical operators to build, deploy, and scale custom autonomous agents. Available immediately with a self-serve Starter tier, the platform eliminates the complex backend engineering required to operationalize AI, allowing teams to move from concept to production-grade deployment in minutes.

While foundation models provide raw reasoning, taking autonomous agents into production has historically required months of fragmented plumbing, including custom vector search pipelines, brittle tool connectors, and disparate frontend widgets. Kravos AI solves this by delivering the complete execution layer around the model: knowledge grounding, skill orchestration, tool execution, and deployment runtimes are connected out of the box.

"Foundation models have made intelligence accessible, but the engineering required to make agents reliably take action, search private data securely, and interact across channels remains a massive barrier for most organizations," said Mr. Marc Dagatan, Co-Founder and CEO of Kravos AI. "Kravos AI is built to carry that infrastructure weight. Builders can configure complex business logic, connect their data, and even build directly from AI coding environments like Cursor and Claude using open standards like MCP—while our platform handles the runtime, security, and execution below."

Key Capabilities of the Kravos AI Platform

The public beta introduces a comprehensive suite of developer and enterprise tools designed for the complete agent lifecycle:

Remote Model Context Protocol (MCP) Support: Developers can connect their preferred coding assistants (Cursor, VS Code, Claude, and ChatGPT) directly to Kravos AI via Streamable HTTP, enabling teams to scaffold, ingest data, and manage agent configurations programmatically from their development environments.

Isolated High-Performance RAG Architecture: Agents are grounded in proprietary enterprise knowledge—including live web crawls, internal documentation, and files—accelerated by a dedicated, isolated RAG cache that reduces retrieval latency to sub-10ms while preventing cross-agent data exposure.

Instant Multi-Modal Deployment: Completed agents can be deployed instantly using a single-line drop-in script tag supporting both real-time voice and text interfaces, or embedded directly into existing products via developer REST APIs.

Deterministic Tool Execution & Action Workflows: Beyond conversational Q&A, agents can execute real-world workflows, query live databases, trigger webhooks, and interact with external enterprise software using standardized tool definitions.

Live Observability & Human-in-the-Loop Takeover: Operators can inspect step-by-step agent reasoning traces, audit tool execution payloads, and intervene with seamless human handoff whenever conversations require human judgment.

Immediate Availability and Getting Started

The Kravos AI public beta is available immediately to developers, startup teams, and organizations worldwide. Users can create a free account to test sandbox agents, configure knowledge sources, and explore the developer API with no credit card required.

To sign up or explore technical documentation, visit https://kravos.ai.

About Kravos AI

Established in 2026, Kravos AI was built to solve a fundamental problem in autonomous execution: bridging the gap between raw AI models and reliable business workflows. Rather than acting as a service agency, Kravos AI provides a zero-infrastructure platform where teams can easily construct, test, and manage custom AI agents tailored to their exact specifications. With built-in step auditing, multimodal deployment, and enterprise-grade security, Kravos AI serves as the central control plane for modern AI operations.

Philippine-Built AI Hiring Platform Jia Takes Home the Country’s Sole ASOCIO 2026 Award

Recognized for AI in Workforce & Future Skills, Jia has helped more than 15 recruitment agencies cut daily candidate admin from hours to minutes, and is set to expand to Singapore and neighboring markets in 2027.

ASOCIO Chairman Stan Singh-Jit (far left) and fellow officials with White Cloak Technologies’ Donn Gamboa, co-founder, president and CEO; Sandra Carlos, Founding Growth Lead; and Kyla Kiunisala, Founding Growth Marketer (third to fifth from left), at the ASOCIO Digital and AI Summit 2026 award night in Jakarta on Oct. 6, where Jia received the AI in Workforce and Future Skills Award.

MANILA, Philippines, Nov. 3, 2026 — Jia, an AI hiring platform developed by Pasig-based White Cloak Technologies Inc., has won the AI in Workforce & Future Skills Award at the ASOCIO Digital & AI Awards 2026. It was the only Philippine recipient among this year’s awardees. Nominated by the Philippine Software Industry Association (PSIA), Jia was recognized on Oct. 6 at the ASOCIO Digital & AI Summit 2026 award night at Swissôtel Jakarta PIK Avenue in Indonesia. The summit drew technology organizations from 26 economies across Asia and Oceania.

Founded in 1984, the Asian-Oceanian Computing Industry Organization (ASOCIO) is a federation of ICT industry associations from across the region. Its annual awards recognize technology that creates measurable impact for business, government and society. The AI in Workforce & Future Skills category honors initiatives that use AI to strengthen workforce development and prepare organizations for the changing world of work. White Cloak co-founder, president and CEO Donn Gamboa received the award alongside Founding Growth Lead Sandra Carlos and Founding Growth Marketer Kyla Kiunisala.

“Standing on that stage as the only Philippine awardee was a proud moment for our team and for the Filipino tech community,” said Gamboa. “It shows that AI built here can hold its own anywhere in the region. But the measure we care about most is on the ground. It’s recruiters getting hours of their week back, and every applicant getting a fair and consistent first look.”

One AI recruitment platform for the first stages of hiring

Jia replaces the manual early steps of high-volume hiring with one connected workflow:

• AI CV screening assesses every applicant against the requirements of the role, so recruiters start with a shortlist instead of a stack of résumés.

• Conversational AI interviews let candidates complete first-round interviews asynchronously, at any hour.

• Applicant tracking follows each candidate from application to final decision in one place.

• Job posting publishes openings to Jia’s Hello Jia career portal and to job boards such as LinkedIn and Indeed.

Proven with more than 25 Philippine clients

Jia’s client base has grown to more than 25 organizations in the Philippines. Among them, more than 15 recruitment agencies have cut daily candidate admin from hours to minutes.

One of them is EMEA AMSI, a licensed recruitment agency that places Filipino workers with employers abroad. Preparing a redacted, client-ready CV package there now takes about two minutes, down from about two hours.

“What used to take me four hours a day, I now finish in five minutes,” said Joshua Belmonte, global business development manager at EMEA AMSI.

Why AI governance in hiring matters for Philippine employers

Filipino workers are among the world’s most advanced users of AI at work. According to Microsoft’s 2026 Work Trend Index, 25% of Filipino workers qualify as “Frontier Professionals,” the most advanced category of AI users, compared with 16% globally. The same report found that 93% of Filipino AI users treat AI output as a starting point rather than a final answer. For BPOs, retailers and banks that screen thousands of applicants a month, the question is no longer whether to use AI in hiring, but how to choose it and govern it.

“AI can now take on much of the screening and first-round interviewing, but a polished demo proves very little, because demos run on hand-picked data,” Gamboa said. “Before any AI touches real candidates, test it on your own applicants for accuracy, consistency and bias. AI should do the legwork, but a person should always make the final call.”

A pivotal moment: taking Jia beyond the Philippines

Having proven itself with Philippine employers, Jia is set to expand to Singapore and neighboring Southeast Asian markets in 2027. The win in Jakarta also drew interest from investors and technology companies attending the summit.

“We built Jia for the realities of Philippine hiring: high volumes, tight timelines and applicants from every corner of the country,” Gamboa said. “Employers across the region face the same challenges. The interest we received from investors and technology firms in Jakarta makes this a pivotal moment for Jia as we bring it to more countries.”

About Jia

Jia is an AI hiring platform developed in the Philippines by White Cloak Technologies Inc. Used by more than 25 organizations, it combines AI CV screening, conversational AI interviews and applicant tracking in one platform. It helps recruitment teams hire faster while giving every candidate a clear, consistent experience. Jia received the ASOCIO AI in Workforce & Future Skills Award in 2026. Learn more at hirejia.ai.

About White Cloak Technologies

White Cloak Technologies Inc. is a Philippine software company founded in 2014 and headquartered in Ortigas Center, Pasig City. It is the main developer behind the UnionBank Online app, the internationally acclaimed mobile banking app that became White Cloak’s flagship project. That work established the company as a technology partner to many of the country’s leading banks and conglomerates. With about 300 people, White Cloak builds digital products across banking, fintech and enterprise, including Jia, its AI hiring platform. Learn more at whitecloak.com