The World is My Skill Tree

The morning sky over Taguig was gray, laced with dew and faint traces of sunlight trying to break through. Elias Angeles stood at the gates of the MetroTech Convention Center, school uniform crisp despite the patch on the collar and the faded hue of daily wear. He clutched his ID envelope in one hand and a sling bag filled with notes, chargers, and a reused plastic folder in the other.

It was the first day of the National Youth Innovator Program—an event he'd never even dreamed of attending, much less participating in.

He passed through security, his name checked off by a young assistant who barely glanced at the school printed on his form: Taguig City Public College. Elias followed the others through the automatic glass doors, stepping into a polished hall that smelled faintly of coffee and new paint.

The event space was immaculate. Bright banners of tech companies and universities lined the walls: Azure, Devnet, MITx, Google, DOST, and more. LED screens hovered above the stage, flashing event timelines and animated infographics. The participants were already gathering—some in matching team blazers with school crests, others in corporate-sponsored gear, complete with customized lanyards and iPad Pros.

Elias instinctively moved toward the corner of the hall and found a seat near the back. He adjusted the sleeves of his uniform and placed his bag on the floor.

He felt the distance between worlds—not because anyone said anything, but because of how quiet the air grew around him. Conversations around him flowed in English, mixed with industry terms like "product-market fit," "scaling roadmap," and "token-based auth." Elias kept his head down, quietly translating what he could.

Soon, the overhead lights dimmed.

The stage lit up in warm tones. A host appeared on screen, and the emcee took the mic at the podium. "Good morning, future innovators," she began, her voice clear and rehearsed. "Welcome to the 10th National Youth Innovator Program."

Elias sat up straighter. This was it.

One by one, speakers took the stage: a senator known for digital literacy reforms, the CTO of a rising startup, an executive from a global cloud platform. Each speech circled the theme of opportunity and innovation. That anyone—with enough passion, skill, and grit—could build something that mattered.

When the screen finally displayed the title Top 20 National Innovators, a hush fell over the crowd.

Elias's name appeared—19th.

For a second, he blinked, unsure if it was real. But there it was: Elias Angeles – Taguig City Public College. A few murmurs stirred nearby, but nothing more. He felt no applause. Just the steady beat of his heart in his chest.

He read through the next line: Group Assignments Now Displayed Below.

He was placed in Group Sigma with three others: Camille (Ateneo), Bryce (UP Diliman), and Jeric (De La Salle Manila). The group met at the lunch area. Polite nods were exchanged. Elias introduced himself, choosing his words carefully.

"I'm Elias. First-year student. I study Information Systems."

"Nice," Camille said, before turning to answer Bryce's question about their itinerary.

They weren't rude. Just distant. Everyone was focused, already analyzing timelines and deliverables. Elias didn't interrupt. Instead, he took notes.

The afternoon transitioned into breakout sessions. The first: System Design and Scalability: A Real-World Perspective.

Each group was given a scenario: "Design a scalable attendance and grading system for a university with 50,000 students across 8 campuses. Requirements: high availability, mobile-first, and API-ready."

Most participants reached for whiteboards and started diagramming. Elias observed for a while, then slowly stepped forward. "If I may," he said, voice low but firm. "Shouldn't we define the entities first? Students, instructors, campuses, courses… and how they interrelate?"

The facilitator raised an eyebrow.

He continued, drawing a clean ERD outline on the sideboard. "If we normalize the data first, we can scale horizontally. The grading and attendance logs can be microservices. Use REST or gRPC to communicate with the frontend."

Someone from another group looked over. "He's right," they muttered.

Elias added, "Caching mechanisms like Redis for session storage. Logging with Azure Application Insights or ELK stack. Also, we'll need rate limiting and retry logic."

The speaker facilitating the session leaned closer. "What year are you?"

"First year," Elias replied.

She nodded, impressed but said nothing.

By the end of the workshop, some of his ideas had been adopted by his group. They added him to the whiteboard session for tomorrow's prototype planning.

But more importantly, the system responded.

[Skill Acquired]

Pitching Fundamentals: +1

Design Thinking: +2

English Proficiency: +1

The logs weren't shown on a screen, nor did Elias hear them. He felt them—deepened confidence, sharper understanding, and improved articulation.

Later that evening, the students were ushered into a seminar hall for a soft-skills workshop: Communicating Your Vision.

The speaker, a startup founder turned executive, asked volunteers to do a sixty-second elevator pitch about a random product. One by one, the braver students went up. Elias listened, mentally picking apart the good and the lacking: clarity, pacing, emotion.

Then the speaker called for more volunteers.

Elias raised his hand.

He walked to the stage, palms slightly sweating. The product? A smart notebook for students that syncs notes with class schedules.

Elias nodded, collected his thoughts, and spoke:

"Imagine a public school student, like me, who takes notes on paper because it's all he can afford. But what if that notebook could digitize his handwriting? Automatically sort lessons by subject. Sync to cloud storage. Alert him when he misses a day or remind him of exam topics based on keyword detection. All done offline, then synced when there's signal."

The room went quiet.

He ended with, "It's not about selling a device. It's about giving learning structure to those who need it most."

The applause wasn't thunderous—but it was real.

The facilitator smiled. "That's what we call user-centered thinking."

When Elias returned to his seat, something shifted. A few people nodded at him. Others, including someone from another group, asked, "Are you presenting in the Startup Showcase?"

"Maybe," Elias replied.

Back at the dormitory that night, Elias scribbled in his journal. He didn't have a laptop for the event—only notes, old specs, and a prepaid SIM card for mobile hotspot access. But he was ready.

He marked the page:

Day 1 Complete

English Proficiency: +1

Pitching: +1

Design Thinking: +2

Networking Awareness: +1

Tomorrow was the first prototyping day.