Celebrating 20 Years of Arduino: Highlights from Arduino Day Philippines 2025

Last March 22, hundreds of makers, students, educators, and tech advocates gathered at STI College Cubao for Arduino Day Philippines 2025, joining the global celebration of 20 years of Arduino and open source innovation. With the theme “Celebrating 20 Years of Arduino and Open Source Innovation,” this year’s event became more than just a commemoration—it was a powerful reflection of how far the local tech community has come and where it’s headed next. The event opened with warm welcomes from Marvin James Erosa and Jeferson De Leon, immediately setting a collaborative tone for the day. And in true Filipino fashion, a surprise Zumba icebreaker added the perfect energy boost to kick things off. But from there, it was all systems go—talks, workshops, demos, and inspiring stories from all corners of the tech space. One of the standout moments came from Dennis Patino, who introduced Pepito, a wooden, Arduino-powered robot designed for beginners. Born from the idea that “if students can’t go to the lab, the lab will go to them,” Pepito has helped over 2,700 students experience hands-on robotics even during the pandemic. His initiative, Robotics Education for All, proves that access to STEM education doesn’t need to be limited by location or resources. Meanwhile, Ryan Azur walked attendees through a real-world IoT application using the new Arduino R4. His talk, From Sensor to Cloud, demonstrated how to build a full-stack solution—monitoring temperature and humidity with sensors, storing data on AWS with MongoDB, and visualizing everything in real time with a React dashboard. His reminder to the audience? “The limit is your imagination.” For those eager to get their hands dirty with actual prototyping, Christian Jay Mendoza offered a practical roadmap. From choosing the right sensors to carefully breadboarding and verifying every connection, his talk emphasized the importance of building with intention. “Understand the code,” he said. “That’s what’s important.” It wasn’t just about building fast—it was about building smart. Beyond the tech talks, Arduino Day PH 2025 also brought heart. Joshua Bascos of Alerto PH introduced this year’s hackathon theme: women’s safety and fire prevention. In his talk, he challenged participants to “imagine your loved ones as you build the solution meant for them.” That call to build with empathy rippled across the day—and could be felt in the projects submitted by teams like Alab-Hero, Fire Archers, and Lora the Explorer. The celebration also stepped into the future—literally—with Kristian David unveiling Flux, a mixed reality lab that allows users to code, simulate, and prototype all in immersive 3D. His vision? To overcome the limitations of 2D simulators and make hardware experimentation more accessible and interactive. Flux, he explained, could be the next evolution in Arduino learning environments. Meanwhile, Jenna Ilao of YGG Pilipinas reminded the crowd that digital careers aren’t just coming—they’re already here. Her presentation on Metaversity and the rise of the Metaverse Filipino Worker (MFW) explored how Web3, gaming, and virtual mentorship are opening new doors for freelancers, students, and remote workers across the Philippines. Other speakers added their own layers of insight to the day. Angelica Naguio took us inside the world of custom mechanical keyboards, showing how Arduino can power not just function, but also creativity and ergonomic design. Daniel Cosare shared his joy in building Alf, a Bluetooth-controlled mascot that reignited his passion for robotics. And Paolo Lozada demonstrated how blockchain, Firebase, and NodeMCU can work together to build seamless, decentralized payment systems for IoT. Throughout the event, the energy never dropped. Whether it was the DevCon Kids program championing coding for ages 9 to 15, or Mark Estopace’s deep dive into Azure IoT pipelines, each session painted a picture of a growing, thriving innovation ecosystem here in the Philippines. At its core, Arduino Day PH 2025 was a celebration of curiosity, creativity, and community. It showcased how open source technology continues to empower a new generation of builders—from grade schoolers assembling earthquake evacuation robots, to seasoned engineers pioneering new use cases for IoT and MR labs. And perhaps most importantly, it reminded us that when we combine empathy with engineering, the results can be both impactful and inspiring. Here’s to 20 years of Arduino—and to many more years of building, sharing, and dreaming together.

May 6, 2025 - 04:23

Celebrating 20 Years of Arduino: Highlights from Arduino Day Philippines 2025

Last March 22, hundreds of makers, students, educators, and tech advocates gathered at STI College Cubao for Arduino Day Philippines 2025, joining the global celebration of 20 years of Arduino and open source innovation. With the theme “Celebrating 20 Years of Arduino and Open Source Innovation,” this year’s event became more than just a commemoration—it was a powerful reflection of how far the local tech community has come and where it’s headed next.

The event opened with warm welcomes from Marvin James Erosa and Jeferson De Leon, immediately setting a collaborative tone for the day. And in true Filipino fashion, a surprise Zumba icebreaker added the perfect energy boost to kick things off. But from there, it was all systems go—talks, workshops, demos, and inspiring stories from all corners of the tech space.

One of the standout moments came from Dennis Patino, who introduced Pepito, a wooden, Arduino-powered robot designed for beginners. Born from the idea that “if students can’t go to the lab, the lab will go to them,” Pepito has helped over 2,700 students experience hands-on robotics even during the pandemic. His initiative, Robotics Education for All, proves that access to STEM education doesn’t need to be limited by location or resources.

Meanwhile, Ryan Azur walked attendees through a real-world IoT application using the new Arduino R4. His talk, From Sensor to Cloud, demonstrated how to build a full-stack solution—monitoring temperature and humidity with sensors, storing data on AWS with MongoDB, and visualizing everything in real time with a React dashboard. His reminder to the audience? “The limit is your imagination.”

For those eager to get their hands dirty with actual prototyping, Christian Jay Mendoza offered a practical roadmap. From choosing the right sensors to carefully breadboarding and verifying every connection, his talk emphasized the importance of building with intention. “Understand the code,” he said. “That’s what’s important.” It wasn’t just about building fast—it was about building smart.

Beyond the tech talks, Arduino Day PH 2025 also brought heart. Joshua Bascos of Alerto PH introduced this year’s hackathon theme: women’s safety and fire prevention. In his talk, he challenged participants to “imagine your loved ones as you build the solution meant for them.” That call to build with empathy rippled across the day—and could be felt in the projects submitted by teams like Alab-Hero, Fire Archers, and Lora the Explorer.

The celebration also stepped into the future—literally—with Kristian David unveiling Flux, a mixed reality lab that allows users to code, simulate, and prototype all in immersive 3D. His vision? To overcome the limitations of 2D simulators and make hardware experimentation more accessible and interactive. Flux, he explained, could be the next evolution in Arduino learning environments.

Meanwhile, Jenna Ilao of YGG Pilipinas reminded the crowd that digital careers aren’t just coming—they’re already here. Her presentation on Metaversity and the rise of the Metaverse Filipino Worker (MFW) explored how Web3, gaming, and virtual mentorship are opening new doors for freelancers, students, and remote workers across the Philippines.

Other speakers added their own layers of insight to the day. Angelica Naguio took us inside the world of custom mechanical keyboards, showing how Arduino can power not just function, but also creativity and ergonomic design. Daniel Cosare shared his joy in building Alf, a Bluetooth-controlled mascot that reignited his passion for robotics. And Paolo Lozada demonstrated how blockchain, Firebase, and NodeMCU can work together to build seamless, decentralized payment systems for IoT.

Throughout the event, the energy never dropped. Whether it was the DevCon Kids program championing coding for ages 9 to 15, or Mark Estopace’s deep dive into Azure IoT pipelines, each session painted a picture of a growing, thriving innovation ecosystem here in the Philippines.

At its core, Arduino Day PH 2025 was a celebration of curiosity, creativity, and community. It showcased how open source technology continues to empower a new generation of builders—from grade schoolers assembling earthquake evacuation robots, to seasoned engineers pioneering new use cases for IoT and MR labs. And perhaps most importantly, it reminded us that when we combine empathy with engineering, the results can be both impactful and inspiring.

Here’s to 20 years of Arduino—and to many more years of building, sharing, and dreaming together.