Agatha Fernandez has a name for it: the rice paradox. Filipinos eat rice at nearly every meal, and in more desserts than most people stop to count, yet the farmers who grow it remain among the poorest people in the country. Speaking at Ateneo de Manila University’s Rockwell campus on September 30, the CEO of Sibol Creamery laid out why: thin support, too few programs, and policies that rarely tilt in the farmer’s favor. That gap, she said, is exactly where her company wants to work.
Sibol makes ice cream out of rice. It is also one of three student startups that won up to ₱1 million each in the first year of KisLap, Ateneo’s social enterprise grant, and the night the program relaunched for a second year was a good moment to notice something about those three. All of them ended up working for farmers. Nobody planned it that way.
KisLap is run by the Ateneo Center for Social Entrepreneurship (ACSEnt), the university’s social enterprise arm, and funded by the Kwan Laurel Social Enterprise Fund. Year 2 opened at the APS Amphitheater in Rockwell Center, Makati, home of the Ateneo Professional Schools, with the same prize as before and a much wider door.
The Rice Paradox, One Scoop at a Time
Fernandez’s argument gets sharper with one more fact. The Philippines has been the world’s largest rice importer since 2023, which means local growers compete not only with typhoons and pests but with grain shipped in from abroad.
Sibol’s answer is to make local rice worth more. The team, founded by Management Economics majors, sources through Hanap Gulay Maginhawa, a Quezon City-based cooperative, and turns the grain into flavors that read like a Filipino childhood: Tutong na Kanin, built on the crisp, toasted layer of rice at the bottom of the pot; Champorado, after the chocolate rice porridge; Mangga sa Kanin, mango with rice; and, newest, Puto Bumbong Banana Latik, a nod to the purple sticky-rice Christmas staple topped with caramelized coconut curds.
It is selling. Fernandez said orders came in heavy on the day of the launch itself, enough to send the team scrambling to restock, and Sibol is now in talks with a large food chain for wider distribution.
Not Leaving the Harvest to Chance
AgriConnect started closer to home. Founder and CEO Soj Gamayon grew up in a farming family in San Nicolas, Ilocos Norte, and built an AI tool that turns weather, pest, and soil data into color-coded alerts: green for safe, yellow for caution, red for act now. Before KisLap, it had already won the 2024 Red Bull Basement, an international student innovation program.
At the launch, Gamayon put the mission plainly: a farmer’s harvest should not be left to chance. What AgriConnect wants to sell is certainty. The team has finished building its sensor and has partnered with the local government in Ilocos Norte to test the prototype on a 42-hectare farm. It is also in talks with national government agencies to widen its coverage.
Klaro Is Already Thinking Past the Philippines
Klaro, founded by business school graduates Zachary Matthew Alabastro and Beatrice Anne Lui, runs an AI-powered platform built to modernize how farms manage their operations. Since winning, it has run onboarding sessions, demos, and site visits with agricultural partners in Nueva Vizcaya, Benguet, and Pangasinan. Alabastro said the team is now talking to more organizations to reach more farmers, and that the longer-term goal is to take Klaro global.
Nobody Planned the Farm
Asked about the pattern, the organizers, led by ACSEnt Director Ana Tan, said they had filed the three winners under different labels (tech, business, agriculture) and had not lined them up side by side as one story. They were quick to add that applications came in from across the board, and that last year’s finalists spanned sectors including fashion and lifestyle. The farm streak, in other words, was where the judging landed, not something the program was built to produce.
Handed an open brief to fix a national problem with a business, three separate teams of young founders looked at the country and walked into the same field.
Why Rockwell, and Why Now
Dr. Roberto Galang, dean of the John Gokongwei School of Management, Ateneo’s business school, pointed out the window. Just beside Rockwell sits Poblacion, known to locals as Pobla or Pobs: Makati’s nightlife district and, less famously, one of the densest clusters of Filipino startups in the city.
“It’s kind of poetic that we re-open this enterprise contest right where a lot of new enterprises are out there trying to improve the lives of Filipinos,” he said.
He was blunter about why KisLap exists at all. “Ang hirap kasi asahan ng gobyerno natin. Sa totoo lang,” he said. It is hard to rely on our government, honestly. With everything the country is up against, he argued, waiting is not a plan. “Why not take it upon ourselves?”
His evidence was the money already changing hands. That customers are paying for what the Year 1 teams built is, as he put it, “a testament that these guys are solving real problems.” His hope for the new batch was simple: “Hopefully, this inspires the next generation of participants and students.”
What Changes in Year 2
The prize has not moved: up to ₱1 million each for three winning teams, with no strings attached, made possible by the program’s funders, mentors, and faculty. What has changed is the field. Year 2 is open to undergraduate and graduate students across nine of Ateneo’s higher-education units: the John Gokongwei School of Management, the Dr. Rosita G. Leong School of Social Sciences, the School of Humanities, the School of Science and Engineering, the Gokongwei Brothers School of Education and Learning Design, the Ateneo School of Medicine and Public Health, Ateneo Law School, the Ateneo School of Government, and the Ateneo Graduate School of Business.
The bar for entry is the same for everyone. Per ACSEnt, applicants must pitch a social enterprise idea and show how it tackles a clearly identified problem while creating sustainable social or environmental impact.
The shortlist grows to match the wider field. This year there will be 15 finalists, nine undergraduate and six graduate, up from seven in Year 1. That is the real test of the farm streak. Future doctors, lawyers, and public servants will each bring a different map of where the country hurts. If the next three winners still end up on the farm, that says something about where Filipino problems are most fundable. If they scatter into health, justice, and governance, the program is working exactly as designed.
KisLap Year 2 at a Glance
- Grant: up to ₱1 million each, three winning teams, no strings attached
- Eligibility: undergraduate and graduate students across nine Ateneo higher-education units
- What to submit: a social enterprise idea, the problem it addresses, and how it creates sustainable social or environmental impact
- Submission deadline: November 13, 2026
- Finalists announced: November 27, 2026 (nine undergraduate, six graduate)
- Inquiries: acsent.jgsom@ateneo.edu, or KisLap’s Facebook page
ElysPlanet attended the KisLap Year 2 launch at ACSEnt’s invitation.