Cebuana Lhuillier, NDRRMC Champion Community Resilience with Nationwide Disaster Preparedness Day

 

Cebuana Lhuillier has partnered with the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC), through the Office of the Civil Defence (OCD) to launch a nationwide disaster preparedness initiative that brings emergency preparedness education and affordable financial protection to flood-prone communities across the country. Timed with the height of the rainy season, the program reinforces the importance of helping Filipino families prepare before disasters strike.

Implemented in collaboration with local government units and Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Offices (MDRRMOs), the caravan will roll out in Marikina City, Cebu City, and Cagayan de Oro. Through expert-led disaster preparedness seminars and the distribution of Emergency Go-Bags to 100 families at every stop, the initiative equips communities with the knowledge and resources they need to better prepare for emergencies.

"The nationwide Disaster Preparedness Day reflects our commitment to making disaster preparedness and financial protection accessible to every Filipino family," said Jean Henri Lhuillier, President and CEO of Cebuana Lhuillier. "By combining education, community engagement, and insurance we are giving families both the knowledge and the safety net they need to face emergencies with confidence."

Each participating family will receive a Cebuana Lhuillier Emergency Go-Bag containing bottled water, canned food, flashlights, whistles, first aid kits, and other essential survival items to help strengthen household preparedness.

Through the Disaster Preparedness Day, Cebuana Lhuillier and the NDRRMC are helping build a culture of preparedness by bringing disaster readiness and financial protection closer to the communities that need them most. By combining practical preparedness with accessible microinsurance, the initiative empowers Filipino families not only to face disasters with greater confidence but also to recover and rebuild more quickly when they occur.

Do Long Opens a New Bridal Chapter with The Prime at Vietnam Wedding Week 2026

 

Ho Chi Minh City, August 2026 – At Vietnam Wedding Week 2026, DO LONG BRIDAL introduced The Prime, bringing a design language associated with glamour, confidence and visual impact into a new conversation: bridal fashion.

Presented as part of Bridal Fashion Show 2026, the collection marked an important moment in Do Long’s exploration of the wedding wardrobe. Rather than simply adapting occasionwear for a bridal context, The Prime approached the bride as a protagonist with her own sense of presence.

Within The Love City, the collection added another perspective to a seven-show programme that moved across very different definitions of contemporary wedding fashion.

A NEW CHAPTER BEGINS ON THE BRIDAL RUNWAY

For a designer with an established relationship to glamour and high-impact dressing, entering bridal fashion presents a particular challenge. A wedding gown belongs to an occasion that is both deeply personal and highly visible.

The garment must hold meaning for the person wearing it, while also defining how she enters the room, appears in photographs and remembers the day years later.

The Prime approached this tension directly, translating a recognisable sense of drama into a bridal proposition built around confidence and presence.

THE PRIME – GLAMOUR, CORSETS AND THE POWER OF PRESENCE

The collection's visual language is shaped by figure-enhancing silhouettes, corsetry and intricate embellishment. These elements create garments that do not retreat into the background.

The body becomes part of the design conversation, with construction used to emphasise shape and create a strong visual line. Embellishment adds another layer of theatricality, allowing each look to carry the polished glamour associated with the DO LONG design universe.

The result is bridal fashion that treats the wedding day as a moment of arrival.

WHEN THE DO LONG WOMAN BECOMES A BRIDE

The move into bridal fashion does not require the designer to abandon an existing aesthetic. Instead, The Prime explores what happens when that aesthetic enters a new emotional context.

Confidence, sensuality and individuality remain central. The difference is that these qualities are now connected to a wedding day and the personal significance that comes with it.

The Do Long bride is therefore not presented as a separate character. She carries the same sense of self-awareness, but expresses it at a different moment in her story.

BEYOND THE TRADITIONAL IMAGE OF BRIDAL BEAUTY

For generations, bridal fashion has often been associated with softness, delicacy and restraint. Those qualities remain meaningful to many brides, but they no longer define the entire category.

The Prime offers another possibility. Its bride can be sensual, sharp, glamorous and unapologetically visible. She does not need to reduce her personality in order to fit a traditional image of the wedding day.

This approach reflects a broader shift within contemporary bridal fashion, where individual identity increasingly matters as much as convention.

FROM FASHION SPECTACLE TO ONE OF LIFE’S MOST PERSONAL MOMENTS

A high-impact runway collection and a wedding dress may appear to belong to different worlds, but both are connected to moments of transformation. One is designed to create an immediate visual experience; the other becomes part of a personal milestone.

The challenge is to allow spectacle and intimacy to coexist. The Prime approaches this through a strong sense of presence, suggesting that glamour itself can become a form of personal expression.

In this way, the collection does not separate the emotional significance of a wedding from the desire to make an unforgettable entrance.

THE PRIME FINDS ITS STAGE IN THE LOVE CITY

Vietnam Wedding Week 2026, developed through the collaboration of YEAH1 and LIVEN Technology, brought together seven designers and brands whose approaches ranged from cultural storytelling and refined romance to couture glamour, modern menswear and sensuality.

Within that landscape, DO LONG BRIDAL occupied a clear position. The Prime spoke to a bride looking for a strong visual signature and a gown that places her confidently at the centre of her own celebration.

With Italian Atelier Asia-Pacific and CjC Marketing Agency supporting Vietnam Wedding Week 2026 as Promotional Partners, the event also formed part of a wider communications and industry outreach effort connecting fashion with the broader wedding ecosystem.

For Do Long, The Prime therefore represented more than another runway presentation. It opened a new bridal chapter while adding another definition of what the contemporary bride can be: visible, self-assured and entirely present in her moment.

Techsauce Global Summit 2026 opened in Bangkok, Thailand, on August 26, bringing together more than 350 exhibitors. Marking its third consecutive appearance at Techsauce, iFLYTEK showcased AI agents, integrated hardware-software products, multilingual AI technologies and enterprise AI infrastructure, further strengthening its presence in Thailand and across Southeast Asia. The iFLYTEK booth attracted dozens of mainstream media outlets from Thailand and the wider region for hands-on demonstrations and coverage. iFLYTEK also received "The Sauciest AI-Driven Company" award at the event.

As AI moves rapidly from pilot projects to deployment at scale, Southeast Asian enterprises are placing greater emphasis on AI agent applications, scenario-specific adaptation and local deployment. According to McKinsey's report AI in Southeast Asia: An Era of Opportunity, 46% of surveyed enterprises in Southeast Asia have moved beyond the AI pilot stage and entered scaled adoption. However, talent, AI integration, return on investment and governance remain key challenges that enterprises must address to scale AI further.

In response to local market needs, iFLYTEK showcased the Enterprise AI Agents (OceanDoc, OceanPraxis, OceanNote and OceanTranslate); the Astron Agent and Workflow Development Platform; GuideX, an integrated hardware-software digital human agent; WallEX; AI Translation Screen; Stars MaaS; and All-in-One Solutions. Together, these offerings address a wide range of scenarios spanning enterprise applications, public services, cross-language interaction and smart spaces.

Enterprise AI Agents Lower the Barrier to Enterprise AI Adoption

At the event, iFLYTEK presented the Enterprise AI Agents and the Astron Agent and Workflow Development Platform, covering the complete journey from ready-to-use AI applications to custom AI agent development.

Centered on the Ocean series, the Enterprise AI Agents support four key scenarios: document creation, meeting management, multilingual translation and business skills training. They are available through both SaaS and private deployment.

OceanDoc generates PowerPoint presentations from text and supports AI-powered formatting and multilingual presentation rehearsals. OceanNote provides multilingual transcription of meeting audio and video, speaker identification, key-point extraction and action-item organization. OceanTranslate translates text, documents, audio, video and images across more than 100 languages while preserving document layouts and supporting customized industry terminology. OceanPraxis simulates scenarios such as customer service and employee training through role-play and conversation review.

All of these agents are built on Astron. Astron Agent supports intent recognition, task decomposition, tool calling and multi-step planning and can connect with enterprise knowledge bases, plugins and third-party systems. Astron Workflow visually connects large language models, tools, robotic process automation (RPA) and external interfaces to build, deploy and orchestrate business processes. It supports complex logic including branching, loops and subtask scheduling. As an open-source platform, Astron Workflow also supports customized development, workflow debugging, version management, deployment, operation and maintenance.

Integrated Hardware-Software Innovation Brings AI Agents into Real-World Environments

As AI moves from digital workflows into physical environments, it must develop stronger capabilities in perception, understanding, decision-making and execution.

GuideX, an integrated hardware-software digital human agent designed for physical public-service environments, served as an intelligent guide at Techsauce. It helped attendees search for companies, locate booths and navigate the exhibition. Powered by end-to-end capabilities spanning perception, understanding, decision-making, execution and memory, GuideX integrates multimodal technologies including face-based activation, sound-source localization, gesture recognition and spatial awareness. It can understand user requests in real time and draw on event information to respond.

GuideX supports more than 30 languages and offers a wide range of digital human avatars and voice options. It is currently providing information services at Don Mueang International Airport in Thailand and has also been deployed in projects for the Federal Authority for Identity, Citizenship, Customs & Port Security in Abu Dhabi and SMRT in Singapore.

Built on the SpaceMind Agentic architecture for smart spaces, WallEX centers on an intelligent control panel and integrates sensors with Nurmina ambient lighting. It extends AI agent capabilities into hotels, premium residences and commercial complexes. Through natural-language interaction, WallEX connects and controls lighting, curtains, air conditioning, security systems and other devices, advancing smart spaces from device control to intelligent spatial services.

Designed for cross-language service scenarios, AI Translation Screen combines multilingual speech recognition, real-time translation, the iFLYTEK Spark large language model and multimodal noise reduction. It supports 101 commonly used languages with automatic language identification and provides both digital human customer service and remote customer service capabilities. During the event, Prof. Dr. Yodchanan Wongsawat, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation of Thailand, visited the iFLYTEK booth and experienced the AI Translation Screen firsthand. He praised the performance of Chinese AI technology in applications such as multilingual interaction, commenting, “China’s AI technology is excellent.”

Cloud and On-Premises Solutions Support Diverse Overseas AI Deployment Needs

To address different enterprise deployment requirements, iFLYTEK showcased Stars MaaS and All-in-One Solutions as two complementary AI infrastructure options.

Designed for enterprises and developers worldwide, Stars MaaS provides one-stop AI capabilities spanning model access, fine-tuning, evaluation, AI agent development and service deployment. The platform brings together more than 50 leading foundation models, including iFLYTEK Spark and DeepSeek. It supports unified API access, flexible model customization and a comprehensive tool ecosystem covering AI agent development, RPA and Model Context Protocol (MCP).

All-in-One Solutions address the needs of overseas government and enterprise customers, financial institutions and telecommunications operators seeking to keep data within their own environments, deploy AI locally and maintain control over their systems. The solutions integrate computing power, models, toolchains and AI agent applications, with product configurations including 4U integrated training-and-inference appliances. All-in-One Solutions support multiple LLMs, including iFLYTEK Spark and DeepSeek.

Without relying on public cloud services, enterprises can run large-model services locally and build business applications through model fine-tuning, private knowledge bases, knowledge distillation and AI agent development.

All-in-One Solutions have already been deployed at scale in industries including telecommunications and media. By jointly optimizing data training and computing efficiency, the solutions have delivered a relative improvement of 10%-15% in recognition accuracy for local languages in overseas markets. An enterprise intelligent search solution built on All-in-One Solutions is also being advanced for deployment with a leading telecommunications operator in Thailand.

Deepening iFLYTEK's Presence in Thailand and Building Southeast Asia's AI Ecosystem

In Thailand, iFLYTEK continues to advance technology research and development, product deployment and industry collaboration.

In industry-academia collaboration, iFLYTEK has signed cooperation agreements with Chulalongkorn University and Zense, a local entertainment company, to jointly conduct localized research and development in technologies including Thai speech recognition and natural language processing.

In real-world deployment, AI Translation Screen has been introduced at Siam Paragon and ICONSIAM, two major retail and lifestyle destinations in Bangkok, providing real-time translation and visitor assistance for international travelers. At Don Mueang International Airport, the GuideX digital human provides information services in more than 30 languages, including Thai, Chinese, English, Japanese and Korean. iFLYTEK has also provided AI-powered simultaneous interpretation in Chinese, English and Thai for the China Mobile Southeast Asia Cooperation Conference.

In recognition of its technological innovation, localized deployment and ecosystem development, iFLYTEK received "The Sauciest AI-Driven Company" award after being selected from more than 50 shortlisted companies at this year's Techsauce.

Starting in Thailand, iFLYTEK is deepening local collaboration across public services, telecommunications, enterprise digitalization and smart spaces, bringing its AI capabilities into a growing range of real-world business scenarios across Southeast Asia.

Data in this article are based on estimates from customer deployments.

About iFLYTEK Co., Ltd.

iFLYTEK Accelerates Chinese AI Expansion in Southeast Asia with Third Consecutive Techsauce Appearance

Three Perspectives Complete The Love City: Sensuality, Modern Menswear and Romance on Day Two

Ho Chi Minh City, August 2026 – If Day One of Vietnam Wedding Week 2026 introduced four different creative worlds, the second day completed the runway journey with another three perspectives on contemporary wedding fashion.

DO LONG BRIDAL, ADAM STORE and LOVINE BRIDAL by Thanh Ho brought different energies to The Love City, moving from sensual bridal glamour and modern menswear to a freer interpretation of romance and personal identity.

Together, the three presentations expanded the conversation beyond one image of the wedding wardrobe and towards a broader picture of the people and personalities behind the celebration.

THE SECOND DAY BRINGS A DIFFERENT ENERGY TO THE RUNWAY

Day Two arrived with a more high-energy sense of contrast. The collections were different in style, but each carried a clear point of view about how a bride or groom can choose to present themselves on a wedding day.

Confidence, tailoring and romance became three different starting points. The result was a programme that continued the diversity established on Day One while taking the runway narrative into new territory.

By the time the final show closed, the full seven-show programme had offered audiences a wide spectrum of contemporary Vietnamese wedding fashion.

DO LONG BRIDAL – THE CONFIDENT BRIDE TAKES THE SPOTLIGHT

DO LONG BRIDAL brought a confident and theatrical energy to the runway. Through body-conscious silhouettes, corsetry and intricate embellishment, The Prime presented a bride who is fully aware of her presence.

This was bridal fashion designed to command attention. Sensuality and sophistication worked together to create a polished visual language in which the wearer does not disappear into the tradition of the wedding day, but takes ownership of the spotlight.

The collection added another definition of bridal beauty to The Love City: one built around confidence, visibility and the power of presence.

ADAM STORE – THE MODERN GROOM GETS HIS OWN FASHION LANGUAGE

ADAM STORE shifted the focus towards menswear and the evolving role of the groom within the wedding fashion conversation.

For a long time, the wedding wardrobe has been discussed primarily through the bride’s gown. Contemporary menswear, however, has its own questions around fit, personality, formality and self-expression.

By bringing the groom’s style into the runway programme, ADAM STORE added another dimension to the overall picture. The wedding day is a shared occasion, and the fashion narrative can give both people space to define how they want to appear.

LOVINE BRIDAL BY THANH HO – ROMANCE WITH FREEDOM AND PERSONALITY

LOVINE BRIDAL by Thanh Ho brought a different emotional tone to the second day. Romance remained central, but it was approached with a greater sense of freedom and individuality.

The collection created room for a bride who does not necessarily want to follow a fixed formula. Personal style and emotional expression became part of the bridal language, offering another interpretation of what contemporary romance can look like.

Within the Day Two line-up, LOVINE provided a softer but no less distinctive counterpoint to the confidence of DO LONG BRIDAL and the tailored perspective of ADAM STORE.

WHEN THREE DIFFERENT WEDDING IDENTITIES SHARE ONE RUNWAY

Together, the three shows created an interesting balance. One explored sensuality and the power of presence. One placed the modern groom at the centre of the fashion conversation. One returned to romance through individuality and personal expression.

Their differences reflected the changing nature of the wedding wardrobe. There is increasing room for people to choose according to who they are rather than who tradition expects them to be.

Music and live performance further shaped the atmosphere of the runway, reinforcing the idea that Bridal Fashion Show 2026 was designed as an immersive experience rather than a sequence of isolated presentations.

COMPLETING SEVEN SHOWS, COMPLETING THE LOVE CITY

Developed through the collaboration of YEAH1 and LIVEN Technology, Vietnam Wedding Week 2026 positioned bridal fashion at the heart of a larger wedding journey. Across two days, the seven-show programme became one of the most visible expressions of that idea.

From cultural storytelling and couture glamour to sensuality, menswear and contemporary romance, the runway demonstrated how diverse the wedding fashion landscape can be.

With Italian Atelier Asia-Pacific and CjC Marketing Agency supporting the event as Promotional Partners, the programme also formed part of a wider communications and industry outreach effort surrounding Vietnam Wedding Week 2026.

By the end of Day Two, The Love City had completed its fashion journey with one clear message: there is no single way to be a modern bride or groom, and the most interesting wedding stories may begin when there is room for difference.