Birth Name: Charmaine Clarice Relucio Pempengco
Also Known as: Jake, Charice Pempengco, Charice
Born: May 10, 1992 (age 25)
Cabuyao City, Laguna Philippines
Label: 143/ Reprisw, Warner Bros. Records, Starmusic

A Filipino singer who rose to popularity through YouTube. Charice was dubbed by Oprah Winfrey as "the most talented girl in the world”, and released the international studio album Charice in 2010. This album entered the Billboard 200 at number eight, making Charice the first Asian solo singer in history to land in the Top 10 of the Billboard 200 albums chart.

The single "Pyramid", featuring singer Iyaz, is Charice's most successful single to date, charting within the Top 40 in a number of countries after its debut live performance on The Oprah Winfrey Show.

Crossing over to acting on television, Charice joined the cast of TV series Glee as Sunshine Corazon. Subsequently, "Before It Explodes", written by Bruno Mars, was released as the lead single from Charice's second international studio album, Infinity. In March 2012, Charice signed on to be one of the four judges of the Philippine version of The X Factor, which began airing on ABS-CBN in June. In May 2015, Charice reunited with former mentor David Foster by performing a version of Sam Smith's "Lay Me Down" on Asia's Got Talent. In 2017, Charice announced a new name, Jake Zyrus, and disclosed that he had both breasts removed and had begun testosterone treatment.

Aisa Mijeno is a faculty member of Engineering and Innovation Labs Director at De La Salle University — Lipa. Being a member of Greenpeace PH, she has traveled many places promoting environmental campaigns. She also loves hiking which brought her to the majestic mountains of northern Philippines where it all began. The product concept was formed after living with a tribe for days relying only on kerosene lamps to do evening chores.
 
Her interests vary from astronomy to classical music to embedded systems and electrochemistry.

Kawatra's Feeding India tries to solve the country's hunger problem by providing free meals through volunteers and donation centers. It operates a smartphone app where restaurants and individuals can sign up to donate food, which are then collected and distributed to people in need. The nonprofit organization has a network of more than 4,500 volunteers, who run regular feeding programs in more than 45 Indian cities and has served more than 4.8 million meals so far.

In 2010, more than 75% of the rural Cambodian population still defecated in the open and Daroath Phav spotted an opportunity to use his business skills for the greater good. He joined non-profit organization WaterSHED aiming to motivate rural families to invest their own money in a household toilet by building a dynamic rural market based on increasing supply and demand, designing aspirational messages for toilets and delivering them through effective sanitation marketing strategies. So far, his team has overseen the sale of more than 150,000 toilets nationwide, generating more than $6 million for local businesses -- helping to push rural sanitation coverage from 25% to nearly 50% over 5 years.

Modi is the chief executive of Lucideus, an enterprise cybersecurity company that he helped start. The firm based in India has provided electronic risk management services for four years to large companies offshore. Modi also joined an Indian government committee formed in 2014 to set up cybersecurity vocational courses. Multiple universities in Asia count him as a visiting faculty member specialized in information systems and security.

These three sisters founded Freedom Cups, a feminine hygiene company operating a "buy one, give one" model that provides women in underprivileged communities with menstrual cups. The cups are ideal for women in areas with no toilets, electricity or running water, as well as reducing waste that alternatives like tampons and pads can create. Each cup lasts up to 15 years and replaces about 5,000 disposable sanitary products, making it a more economical and eco-friendly option.

Shabibi is the cofounder and CEO of Machine Ventures, a Philippines-based incubator providing financial support and management guidance to people trying to start their own businesses in the country. One of the first companies it hatched is HeyKuya, a text-based personal assistant system with more than 35,000 users. Originally from Iran, Shabibi is a successful serial entrepreneur who founded two startups -- in music streaming and sports media -- before moving to the Philippines.

Katrina Razon is an entrepreneur who is the Managing Partner of Third Culture Music + Media, an experiential marketing agency and serves as a Director at Wonderfruit, Thailand's premium lifestyle festival focused on sustainability. With over ten years of experience in the music industry, Katrina has consulted and collaborated on multiple festival brands around the world. In 2016, she launched KSR Ventures as an investment vehicle toward entertainment ventures, technology and biotechnology. Her passions include philanthropy, surfing and sharing music as a DJ. 

Singapore's Privi Medical is a medtech startup that makes transformative medical devices. Their flagship solution is a disposable, drug-free cure for low-grade haemorrhoids that can be used by the sufferers in the comfort of their homes. Since the solution is drug-free, it will be especially helpful to pregnant women -- a group where the incidence of this problem is particularly high. Sina Raja cofounded Privi Medical in 2014, and last year the startup raised $1.1 million in seed funding.

Together with her husband, Eom launched Solidware, a startup that uses big data and machine learning to help financial companies give better credit scores -- and thus, customers a better chance at getting loans. The duo quit their well-paying jobs and bootstrapped the fintech startup at their home, cooking for their employees to save costs while developing an artificial intelligence solution that would analyze financial companies massive customer databases. They were acquired by Korea's Yello Financial Group (now named DAYLI Financial Group) last March, and plan to expand into Japan and France.

Datar, a lawyer by trade, founded Vakilsearch ("vakil" means lawyer in Hindi), an online platform that provides legal services to startups, corporates and professionals in India. The startup offers a wide range of services including company incorporation, compliance, tax filing and property agreements. Founded in 2011, the company -- which aims to streamline legal services at an affordable price -- has so far served over 150,000 customers.

Guo cofounded Tezign, a platform connecting freelancing artists, illustrators and UI designers in 2014. With a mission to revolutionize the relationship between clients and creative professionals, Tezign has brought together over 2,000 projects, from major clients such as land developer SOHO China, Greenland Group, and the film production company H.Brothers. Guo is an artist at heart and a graduate of China's Central Academy of Fine Arts. She has curated art exhibits worldwide.

As the cofounders of Singaporean food company The Golden Duck Co., Shen and Hwang took advantage of a craze for salted egg yolk there, by creating a series of handcrafted gourmet snack products - from potato chips to crunchy fish skin - with this distinctive flavor. The Golden Duck Co. now sells an average of 10,000 packets of snacks per week.

Guitar is attractive, but its also hard to learn. Young people who dream of picking up guitar always end up playing [guitar hero] instead, and quit practicing the real guitar. But wait, why not create a real version of guitar hero to gain the same fun gaming experience, and pick up simple guitar skill at the same time? Poputar, with 120 LEDs on guitar finger board, is designed to visualize the finger position and optimize the fun of music out of daily practice. Zhang Bohan, a 26-year-old entrepreneur from Beijing, generated his idea about Poputar when he was studying Finance in Amsterdam, Europe. With a true love of playing guitar, operated under a financial perspective, Bohan Zhang combines a cool real guitar and guitar learning gamification together, creating Poputar that has 120 LEDs on guitar finger board to help locate chord position. Poputar has now reached 20 million RMB sales in China, and has launched Indiegogo crowd-funding in North America.   

Jianbo cofounded CellRobot in 2014. The startup makes customized modular robots from its lithium battery- powered modulars, which can be rearranged into as many as 100 differently shaped robots. With CellRobot's smartphone app, users can set their speeds and control them for simple tasks such as filming video, watering plants and pouring wine! Yang holds a master's degree in mechatronics engineering from Beihang University in Beijing.

Liu founded Arashi Vision in 2014. The startup makes 360-degree cameras that can take spherical videos and photos in 4K quality. The gadgets, which can be installed on smartphones, are available in more than 50 countries including China, the U. S. and Japan. It has attracted tens of millions of dollars in funding from investors, including Qiming Venture Partners, IDG Capital Partners and Chinese retailer Suning Group. Liu holds a bachelor's degree in software engineering from the Nanjing University Software Institute.

A practicing corporate lawyer in Melbourne, Chai Walli's Uppma Virdi is also the granddaughter of an Ayurvedic doctor who specialized in spices. Her tea blends and products are sold online and supplied to everyone from the regular home-shopper to supermarkets, restaurants, and yoga studios across Australia. Virdi was named Australia's Businesswoman of the year for 2016 at the Indian Australian Business and Community Awards.

Long before he was amassing awards in culinary competitions in the Philippines and abroad, Michael “Miko” Aspiras has already been getting high praises from his colleagues and many people in the local food and beverage industry. His pastry executions are unblemished, his flavour combinations go without any question, and his work ethic is unquestionably professional. All these just when he was still in culinary school, impressing teachers and fellow students alike.

While investing on reputable experience from such renowned chefs, he was trying to build a name on his own by joining competitions, and emerging out of it with awards and much deserved respect and recognition. He has bagged multiple citations (including the highest one possible) in the Philippine Culinary Cup as well as Gold medals in the World Association of Chefs Societies Congress in Korea and Hong Kong Culinary Classics. These have resulted to numerous citations as a “chef to watch out for” by recognized publications, a declaration as “chef of the year” by Esquire Philippines for 2015, consultancy projects for Magnum Cafe in Manila and Malaysia, and a coaching stint at the most recent Coupe de Monde dela Patisserie in Lyon, France, proving that he truly is at the top of his game.

These days, Miko has been busy opening and running establishments that have been shaking Manila’s vibrant food scene.