DigiTALINO

Princess invited me. I was the lone 2nd year, everyone else was buried in thesis, and I said yes without really knowing what I was getting into. We called ourselves CSCI_67. We weren't confident about our idea going in, and it showed. We barely made it past eliminations, somewhere near the bottom of the list.

We got a second chance and made the most of it. The mentorship sessions were genuinely useful and we actually paid attention. We redid the proposal from scratch, not just revised it, actually started over. Somehow we came out seeded 1st in the next round.

I suggested we build a prototype. A working one, not just slides. Good thing we did, because during the defense we got commended for showing something real. DigiTALINO was a modular governance platform for LGUs, e-services, payroll, and a disaster risk management system with SMS incident mapping. It was a lot to pull off but having something to click through made the difference.

We walked out of the room convinced we bombed it. The Q&A felt rough and we spent the wait replaying everything we said. Then our name got called for Grand Champion. I think none of us fully processed it in the moment.