Meeting Title: Brainforge AI Adoption Strategy Sync Date: 2026-03-26 Meeting participants: Brylle Girang, Jorrel Sto. Tomas
WEBVTT
1 00:03:58.550 ⇒ 00:03:59.690 Brylle Girang: Hello!
2 00:04:00.060 ⇒ 00:04:00.960 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: Lowe.
3 00:04:01.920 ⇒ 00:04:05.770 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: How do I pronounce your name? Is it Britt? Brill? Britt? Or what?
4 00:04:05.770 ⇒ 00:04:06.920 Brylle Girang: But you can call.
5 00:04:06.920 ⇒ 00:04:07.680 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: Wow.
6 00:04:08.950 ⇒ 00:04:11.179 Brylle Girang: Just the letter B, yeah.
7 00:04:11.180 ⇒ 00:04:12.680 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: Okay, nice.
8 00:04:12.840 ⇒ 00:04:15.619 Brylle Girang: How about yours? Is that Jor-El? Jor-El?
9 00:04:15.620 ⇒ 00:04:17.510 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: Yeah, Jor-El, yes.
10 00:04:17.519 ⇒ 00:04:20.629 Brylle Girang: Okay. Did you still… do you know how to speak Tagalog?
11 00:04:21.690 ⇒ 00:04:24.330 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: No, I don’t, which sucks.
12 00:04:26.230 ⇒ 00:04:28.289 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: I only understand, so…
13 00:04:28.290 ⇒ 00:04:28.990 Brylle Girang: Oh…
14 00:04:28.990 ⇒ 00:04:42.720 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: work with my team, I just let them speak Tiago, like, half the time, but since we have a lot of US-facing clients, I, I also force them to, to speak English, so they get used to it.
15 00:04:42.950 ⇒ 00:04:47.519 Brylle Girang: You mentioned that you were from Batanga, so… can you tell me your story?
16 00:04:47.940 ⇒ 00:04:59.320 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: Yeah, of course. So, I was born in Padangas, and when I was 2 years old, we moved to… me and my siblings and my family, we moved to California.
17 00:04:59.420 ⇒ 00:05:06.629 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: So, that was 19… No, that was 2000. So, April 2000.
18 00:05:07.180 ⇒ 00:05:13.669 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: And, yeah, I grew up in Orange County, so, OC, and then,
19 00:05:14.030 ⇒ 00:05:28.819 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: yeah, did my whole… my whole life here, in California, and basically… and I would… I would go back to Wadangas, to Lipa, so my family’s from Lipa, Lipa City. And we would go back almost, like, every other summer.
20 00:05:28.820 ⇒ 00:05:37.760 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: And so, I kept very, like, in touch with my family and my relatives there and here, and then,
21 00:05:38.330 ⇒ 00:05:44.449 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: I think in 2000… 18… no. No, no. How long was this?
22 00:05:44.570 ⇒ 00:05:51.650 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: 2016, 2016. We moved my Lola Lola from the Philippines to live with my uncle in Hawaii.
23 00:05:52.010 ⇒ 00:05:52.360 Brylle Girang: Okay.
24 00:05:52.360 ⇒ 00:06:01.329 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: So I started… we kind of… because the main reason I would go back to Vadangas was to visit my Lord Lola, we started to go less.
25 00:06:01.610 ⇒ 00:06:05.070 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: But then, in 2021,
26 00:06:05.260 ⇒ 00:06:21.489 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: we started to explore business opportunities in the Philippines, and so, now I’m back… I go back to the Philippines probably 4 or 5 times a year, yeah, to help manage my team, and yeah, our office is in Lima Park, so…
27 00:06:21.680 ⇒ 00:06:22.550 Brylle Girang: Wow.
28 00:06:22.820 ⇒ 00:06:27.190 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: Yeah, but we, we actually, we have a partnership with Batanga State University, so BSU.
29 00:06:27.190 ⇒ 00:06:27.740 Brylle Girang: Okay.
30 00:06:27.870 ⇒ 00:06:34.320 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: In Vidangar City, and so, before, I would actually go… we had an office at their steer hub.
31 00:06:34.440 ⇒ 00:06:41.779 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: So… Yeah, and so yeah, that’s my background. I just, like, did my life here, was in tech.
32 00:06:41.860 ⇒ 00:06:56.800 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: Robert and I met, at one of my first jobs out of college, and so Robert and I have known each other for 7 years now. Okay. And since he and I kind of took a similar path, so he… he… he and I both ended up in data.
33 00:06:56.920 ⇒ 00:07:03.359 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: We actually started working together again 3 years ago when he started Pungo Insights.
34 00:07:03.780 ⇒ 00:07:04.610 Brylle Girang: Oh, okay.
35 00:07:04.900 ⇒ 00:07:12.540 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: Yeah, so I was one of his partners at Pungo, and then, once him and Utam merged Pungo Insights, I,
36 00:07:12.640 ⇒ 00:07:21.870 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: There wasn’t really… I… I also… I kind of came in too early, because a lot of my specialty is in, selling into mid-market, or…
37 00:07:21.870 ⇒ 00:07:36.950 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: And I’m also… I’m also a data… I can… I can do a lot of the same work that you guys do as well, but, you know, I’m mainly a manager now. So, but, but yeah, that’s how I know Robert, and then Robert asked me last week.
38 00:07:37.030 ⇒ 00:07:50.420 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: Like, he needs someone to do GTM, and since I’m a founder, it’s… it’s pretty much, like, breathing for me. And so, yeah, that’s… that’s kind of how everything came together, so… I hope that…
39 00:07:50.420 ⇒ 00:07:56.960 Brylle Girang: Yeah, yeah, th-th-th- way, so I currently live in Tanawan.
40 00:07:57.130 ⇒ 00:08:00.080 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: Oh, you live in Denala? Yeah, yeah.
41 00:08:00.080 ⇒ 00:08:05.309 Brylle Girang: world, and I actually, I actually have, like, a house in Malvar, and that’s super.
42 00:08:05.310 ⇒ 00:08:05.930 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: Whoa, whoa.
43 00:08:05.930 ⇒ 00:08:06.940 Brylle Girang: Digma, right?
44 00:08:06.940 ⇒ 00:08:07.919 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: Oh my god.
45 00:08:07.920 ⇒ 00:08:08.440 Brylle Girang: That is it.
46 00:08:08.900 ⇒ 00:08:13.580 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: I know, I know where Malvar is, I know where Tanalen is, I… so,
47 00:08:13.930 ⇒ 00:08:24.720 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: If you’re ever in the Lipa area, my family, so, my family owns, Kaiju, Kaiju Cafe.
48 00:08:25.190 ⇒ 00:08:25.920 Brylle Girang: Really.
49 00:08:26.100 ⇒ 00:08:26.710 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: Yeah.
50 00:08:27.120 ⇒ 00:08:33.810 Brylle Girang: We just ate there, like, a month ago. It is one of the most amazing cafes that I have been.
51 00:08:34.070 ⇒ 00:08:36.470 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: Yeah, so yeah, it’s right across from the Rayyadh, right?
52 00:08:36.470 ⇒ 00:08:37.280 Brylle Girang: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
53 00:08:37.289 ⇒ 00:08:56.399 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: And so, so, yeah, my, my Ate, Jonah Guerrero, she’s the, she’s the main operator, and, her and… her and her husband, Miggs, Queen Miggs, and then the rest of her siblings, like, my cousins as well, they’re, they’re part owners of, of Kaiju.
54 00:08:57.010 ⇒ 00:09:07.389 Brylle Girang: That is amazing. If you don’t mind, I’m just texting my girlfriend, and I’m telling her that I’m speaking with one of the owners of Kaiju, so…
55 00:09:08.630 ⇒ 00:09:12.650 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: Yeah, I, yeah, I’m pretty much, yeah.
56 00:09:15.000 ⇒ 00:09:20.639 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: pretty much La Finca, Pala Riot, and that little, like… That trifecta of…
57 00:09:20.640 ⇒ 00:09:21.080 Brylle Girang: Yeah.
58 00:09:21.080 ⇒ 00:09:29.680 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: gated community places, and so I’m always in that area, but my favorite is the, the…
59 00:09:29.760 ⇒ 00:09:45.919 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: there’s the Goto, the Gotoan, like, just, if you go down past, like, go down past Kaiju, and it’s that, that open-air, Gotan place, like, I eat there almost, like, the first week when I come back. I’ve always… I always eat there, so…
60 00:09:45.950 ⇒ 00:10:01.659 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: But, but I go back and forth, I go back and forth from Badangas and, Manila a lot, so when I fly in, the… I have a wide network of Manila-based VCs that I work with, and so…
61 00:10:01.920 ⇒ 00:10:21.019 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: whenever I’m in town, we always catch up, and we go to a few, like, tech events here and there. And then mainly when I’m in Votangas, it’s all, like, you know, managing my team. Yeah. And, we’re expanding really quickly over there, so… Yeah, but that’s, yeah, that’s kind of… yeah, that’s what I do, that’s what I do.
62 00:10:21.020 ⇒ 00:10:26.969 Brylle Girang: That’s cool. So, what does your… what does your team do? Like, what does your other company do?
63 00:10:27.350 ⇒ 00:10:31.409 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: So, we’re in the cybersecurity space. So,
64 00:10:31.990 ⇒ 00:10:40.959 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: basically, we had a, we had this partnership with Batanga State, because we, President Tirso
65 00:10:41.000 ⇒ 00:11:00.310 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: my dad had met him a couple of years ago, and, you know, we were… because we were shopping around, talking to a handful of different universities, because we… my dad is a five-time chief information security officer, so… a CISO, and so he didn’t want to become a CISO anymore here in the States.
66 00:11:00.310 ⇒ 00:11:14.849 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: And, kind of, like, his legacy is he wanted to bring and up, you know, and uplift the profession of cybersecurity in, in the Philippines. And so… Okay. So yeah, basically, in, like, 2021, we…
67 00:11:14.870 ⇒ 00:11:23.929 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: We were actually with… we were working with some folks in the government, on initiatives that were actually pushed by, by the president, and,
68 00:11:24.800 ⇒ 00:11:29.749 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: Things just didn’t work out. You know government. You know how it is.
69 00:11:31.780 ⇒ 00:11:33.080 Brylle Girang: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
70 00:11:33.080 ⇒ 00:11:42.539 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: So, things, things were kind of in flux, and then we… we were, we were planning on working with, De La Salle, but,
71 00:11:42.750 ⇒ 00:11:46.950 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: Things, once again, like, even in academia, there’s a lot of, like.
72 00:11:47.720 ⇒ 00:12:05.979 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: a lot of bureaucracy and a lot of, you know, things that, just continue to change, and so we were like, okay, well, you know, we want… we want to do something quick, so what is… or not quick, but we want to do something that can benefit, you know, our hometown and benefit the folks in the Philippines, and so,
73 00:12:05.980 ⇒ 00:12:20.520 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: Serendipitously, he met, President Tuso at BSU, and they were already pushing for an initiative for, you know, additional, folks to be brought into their steer hub and, kind of, like, work with the university, you know, to, to,
74 00:12:20.570 ⇒ 00:12:27.139 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: explore new potential, like, innovative things they could be providing for their students. And so.
75 00:12:27.240 ⇒ 00:12:44.590 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: Yeah, we basically… because we had… we… my dad’s, connection and network with so many CEOs of cybersecurity companies, we were able to quickly, form a partnership with a huge enterprise and start staffing. At least to start, we started staffing the interns.
76 00:12:44.590 ⇒ 00:12:47.869 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: Which then evolved into staffing their security analysts.
77 00:12:47.980 ⇒ 00:12:54.730 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: And then we’re slowly kind of moving into pretty much staffing their entire professional and managed services arm.
78 00:12:55.020 ⇒ 00:13:06.460 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: And, after proving out that that model was working, then we started working with other cybersecurity companies to staff security analysts. And we trained. It’s like, they’re straight-up
79 00:13:06.460 ⇒ 00:13:23.380 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: from BSU, they’re, like, former alum or students that are transitioning to new grads. And so, we train them, we give them opportunities to experience, you know, being a legitimate security engineer or a network engineer.
80 00:13:23.410 ⇒ 00:13:28.270 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: And then we staff them into, like, very high-touch projects that they can learn very quickly.
81 00:13:28.480 ⇒ 00:13:39.230 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: Okay. And… yeah, and this is… this year is, like, our third year, and so we’re now starting… now we’re… we’re actually starting to transition out some of our… our longest,
82 00:13:39.360 ⇒ 00:13:44.750 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: Our longest employees are now moving on to other things, which is great, which was the goal, right?
83 00:13:44.750 ⇒ 00:13:45.180 Brylle Girang: Yeah.
84 00:13:45.180 ⇒ 00:13:52.550 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: And so… but yeah, that’s kind of what we do. So, it’s, employer of record, staff augmentation for cybersecurity.
85 00:13:52.650 ⇒ 00:14:01.969 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: And then the goal is to, yeah, spread cybersecurity through the Philippines, but it’s a very slow process, very, very slow process.
86 00:14:01.970 ⇒ 00:14:02.540 Brylle Girang: Yeah.
87 00:14:02.860 ⇒ 00:14:16.510 Brylle Girang: Actually, I checked Fishin Node when you came in, and I was immediately interested in why security and attack companies based in Batangas. That’s the first time that I have heard of that. Most of the tech companies here
88 00:14:16.510 ⇒ 00:14:24.050 Brylle Girang: Especially security companies are in BGC, the gig right in the area, and that was really amazing.
89 00:14:24.450 ⇒ 00:14:33.549 Brylle Girang: Wow, and then you… you work with new hires, and I think this is… this is a really good opportunity, because I know that new hires here, they… they don’t…
90 00:14:33.930 ⇒ 00:14:44.279 Brylle Girang: think about cybersecurity as their first… as their first, like, curve path, right? Because the exposure in our education system is really, really bad.
91 00:14:44.640 ⇒ 00:14:51.280 Brylle Girang: I think this is amazing, like, you’re doing a really, really good thing for the sake of the students.
92 00:14:51.630 ⇒ 00:14:57.900 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: Yeah, well, you know… the… the…
93 00:14:58.100 ⇒ 00:15:02.769 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: What we have learned over the course of talking with a lot of
94 00:15:03.110 ⇒ 00:15:09.110 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: Admin administrators, folks in politics, and…
95 00:15:09.480 ⇒ 00:15:16.940 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: family offices as well. There’s a very huge fear right now because the BPO industry is dying.
96 00:15:17.410 ⇒ 00:15:17.850 Brylle Girang: Yeah.
97 00:15:17.850 ⇒ 00:15:21.409 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: In the Philippines, and it’s, it’s,
98 00:15:21.780 ⇒ 00:15:32.360 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: It’s… everyone’s in denial. They’re… they’re like, no, no, no, like, we’re… we’re good, like… but the problem is, is, like, you’re seeing it at Brainforge, right? Yeah. Like, we’re automating everything.
99 00:15:33.630 ⇒ 00:15:35.430 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: Even voice… even voices.
100 00:15:35.430 ⇒ 00:15:36.240 Brylle Girang: Yes.
101 00:15:36.240 ⇒ 00:15:48.660 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: It’s so good. It’s, like, not… I see a lot of folks in my industry, not only in cybersecurity, but I’m also a founder, so entrepreneur here in California.
102 00:15:48.720 ⇒ 00:15:57.729 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: There is… there is an amazing amount of, like, technology that is almost science fiction, but it’s not fiction anymore, it’s real.
103 00:15:58.200 ⇒ 00:15:59.120 Brylle Girang: Yeah, yeah.
104 00:15:59.120 ⇒ 00:16:09.680 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: And it’s so good that it’s, like, people don’t even know 90% of the time that they’re interacting with AI or chatbots or AI workflows.
105 00:16:12.540 ⇒ 00:16:14.569 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: the same vein in the Philippines, they don’t…
106 00:16:14.700 ⇒ 00:16:17.910 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: They don’t know how good it is. Yeah.
107 00:16:17.910 ⇒ 00:16:18.310 Brylle Girang: Exactly.
108 00:16:18.310 ⇒ 00:16:18.860 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: So…
109 00:16:19.210 ⇒ 00:16:19.530 Brylle Girang: Exactly.
110 00:16:19.530 ⇒ 00:16:34.699 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: with the BPO, with the BPO industry, you know, they’re, you know, especially, like, SM and, you know, there’s… there’s, like I said, a lot of… a lot of powerful families and their family offices we’ve talked to. Like, they’re all very, very… they’re… they’re panicking right now because, you know.
111 00:16:35.030 ⇒ 00:16:52.009 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: if the BPO industry collapses in the Philippines, that’s, like, 10 million Philippine workers without jobs. Yeah. And… yeah, and, you know, we’re less than… like, I thought we still had a decade, but we’re less than probably 3 years from that fallout.
112 00:16:52.110 ⇒ 00:17:00.939 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: So… and so… so, not only us, but there’s a bunch of other, other folks in, in the, in, in,
113 00:17:01.330 ⇒ 00:17:07.879 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: in the different parts of the Philippines trying to solve this, and so, yeah, you know, we’re all…
114 00:17:08.560 ⇒ 00:17:12.399 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: We all wish the gun room was just a little bit better.
115 00:17:12.400 ⇒ 00:17:16.749 Brylle Girang: Yeah, I totally agree with you. I am an electronics engineering graduate.
116 00:17:16.839 ⇒ 00:17:30.140 Brylle Girang: So, cybersecurity is definitely one of the… one of the paths that I have looked into. And at the same time, when I was… when I was studying, I was also working in a BIPO company, so I came from a customer service representative background.
117 00:17:30.160 ⇒ 00:17:37.070 Brylle Girang: And I can… I can agree with you, like, my job, when I was studying, is totally…
118 00:17:37.900 ⇒ 00:17:56.019 Brylle Girang: not required now, because of the pace that AI is moving, right? I was actually talking with an AI voice agent from PLDT, because my bill was due, and I was not able to pay it, and it took me quite a while to know that it was actually an AI.
119 00:17:56.020 ⇒ 00:17:58.709 Brylle Girang: agents. But yeah, so I think…
120 00:17:58.710 ⇒ 00:18:06.209 Brylle Girang: one of your goals is just making sure that once the PPO company collapses, there’s, like, a backup plan for this PPO.
121 00:18:06.210 ⇒ 00:18:18.379 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: Yeah, yeah, we, like, like, we… I was in the middle of, correspondence with, the Zobel, the… one of the Zobel ferry offices.
122 00:18:18.410 ⇒ 00:18:30.209 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: And they’re the, like, they’re one of the most, like, like, they were talking to a few of my VC friends, because they’re like, like, what, what, what industries can we be building? Like, what, and, and they had name-dropped, like, Fusion Node.
123 00:18:30.280 ⇒ 00:18:34.040 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: But it’s funny, because, like,
124 00:18:37.210 ⇒ 00:18:53.360 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: It’s like, see, this is why nothing… nothing is getting addressed. It’s like, you panic, all this stuff, and then we’re not gonna have a real conversation for half a year, right? So… yeah, it’s bad.
125 00:18:53.360 ⇒ 00:19:05.040 Brylle Girang: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You mentioned with the amount of red taping here in the pH. Oh my gosh. Yeah, it’s gonna collapse. Wow. Wow. Wow.
126 00:19:05.160 ⇒ 00:19:08.280 Brylle Girang: I am amazed, and I am speechless.
127 00:19:08.380 ⇒ 00:19:11.629 Brylle Girang: Have you, have you looked into PUP as a partner?
128 00:19:12.510 ⇒ 00:19:13.500 Brylle Girang: Polytechnic University.
129 00:19:13.500 ⇒ 00:19:22.249 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: no, not… I think… so… so we’re… we’re kind of… how do I say,
130 00:19:22.950 ⇒ 00:19:28.790 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: We have done our best to try and, like, spread out and, like, But…
131 00:19:29.460 ⇒ 00:19:44.589 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: Every time we engage with a new school, like, it is the same pace of, like, oh yeah, you know, let’s explore, oh yeah, we’ll look into micro-credentialing, or we’ll get, like, you know, forwarded to a professor working on something similar, or…
132 00:19:44.590 ⇒ 00:19:45.130 Brylle Girang: Okay.
133 00:19:45.130 ⇒ 00:19:50.430 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: Alright, an initiative, and then it just gets stuck in… Stuck in transit for…
134 00:19:50.640 ⇒ 00:20:08.750 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: for 9 to 10 months, and especially at the pace we’re moving, trying to, like, work with companies and whatnot. Yeah. Like, yeah, we have threads everywhere, and so, yeah, I don’t think we specifically work with PUP, but, you know, we’ve talked to representatives from, like, UP,
135 00:20:08.800 ⇒ 00:20:23.750 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: Aneo, de la Sal, de la Salipa, Patanga, you know, obviously BSU, but then there are other campuses as well. And yeah, it’s just, like, those threads are just, they, you know…
136 00:20:24.020 ⇒ 00:20:24.560 Brylle Girang: or just Perez.
137 00:20:24.560 ⇒ 00:20:36.360 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: It’s just threads. It’s like, you know, you send out a response, there’s no urgency. One, two months later, oh yeah, let’s set up a meeting, and then you have a meeting, and it’s like, okay, we’ll have a follow-up. It’s two or three months later.
138 00:20:36.380 ⇒ 00:20:50.950 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: And then it’s like, okay, well, like, will this ever… will we ever be able to address this problem? And so, I think what’s going to realistically happen is something like Ayala or a void this will eventually, like.
139 00:20:50.980 ⇒ 00:20:55.820 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: You know, it’ll be real enough where they will start to seek out
140 00:20:58.620 ⇒ 00:21:03.169 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: we’re too reactive, like, as Filipinos, we’re way too reactive about things.
141 00:21:03.330 ⇒ 00:21:19.419 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: And so, not until, you know, our… half of our country is underwater do we all of a sudden care, you know? We’ll just complain, we’ll complain, but not until, you know, we’re forced out of our homes and, you know, our homes drifting into the ocean. I mean, we’re not going to…
142 00:21:19.660 ⇒ 00:21:26.389 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: we’re not gonna say anything, right? So, not until the BPOs are actively losing money, and they’re… they’re laying off
143 00:21:27.170 ⇒ 00:21:35.390 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: our friends and family, will they actually start to, take us seriously? So, and unfortunately, that is how we have to do things.
144 00:21:35.840 ⇒ 00:21:36.360 Brylle Girang: yet.
145 00:21:36.890 ⇒ 00:21:41.210 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: I know it’s getting really expensive over there because of the war, so,
146 00:21:41.830 ⇒ 00:21:51.319 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: Yeah, before I left, because I was just there 4 weeks ago. Before I left, it was 50… 50 pesos per liter, and now 120. I was like, my god, like…
147 00:21:51.610 ⇒ 00:21:53.110 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: I’m sorry.
148 00:21:53.760 ⇒ 00:22:02.920 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: Here, it’s bad, too. It’s, like, 250? It would be around $250, a liter.
149 00:22:02.920 ⇒ 00:22:04.010 Brylle Girang: Wow.
150 00:22:04.010 ⇒ 00:22:06.909 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: That’s the equivalent of how much we’re paying here in the US right now.
151 00:22:06.910 ⇒ 00:22:08.110 Brylle Girang: Okay, wow.
152 00:22:08.270 ⇒ 00:22:08.940 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: Yeah.
153 00:22:09.350 ⇒ 00:22:20.660 Brylle Girang: Yeah, yeah, these are good insights. I’m actually going to, like, have a talk. I’m going to be a speaker in NPUP in, like, two weeks’ time, and one of the main things that I want to discuss is, like.
154 00:22:20.830 ⇒ 00:22:36.069 Brylle Girang: how fast AI is moving, and how it will change, like, the electronics engineering landscape, because when I graduated, we were studying, like, Jupyter notebooks. Like, what the fuck? We were studying how to, like, how to…
155 00:22:36.070 ⇒ 00:22:43.930 Brylle Girang: how to manually write Python codes, and there were no indications of, like, AI and its implementations, so…
156 00:22:44.140 ⇒ 00:22:54.629 Brylle Girang: I’m just hoping that I could, like, give some sort of a push for the university there. And would you mind me, like, sharing some of the things that I learned here?
157 00:22:55.200 ⇒ 00:23:04.409 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: No, I don’t mind at all. Like I said, our… this is our mission, like, our mission with starting that business here. It’s not the most profitable business, but…
158 00:23:06.920 ⇒ 00:23:22.229 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: escape in the Philippines. Even now, there’s a huge… there’s a… we’re lobbying, actually, with, with one of the senators, because, there’s a… there’s this huge tax… huge VAT tax that was put on foreign digital goods last year.
159 00:23:22.350 ⇒ 00:23:31.299 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: Right, I’m sure you’re familiar, it’s 37%. Yeah. It’s 25%, and then on top of the 12%, that, you know, non-VAT tax, right?
160 00:23:31.300 ⇒ 00:23:31.700 Brylle Girang: Yeah.
161 00:23:31.700 ⇒ 00:23:44.350 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: So, you know, because we were wondering, it’s like, oh, wow, it’s like, it’s so… it’s so expensive, like, for, you know, for us to do reselling and stuff. It’s like, why is that? And so we talked to, some folks at ABP,
162 00:23:44.450 ⇒ 00:23:49.350 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: And, they’re like a security services company in the Philippines.
163 00:23:51.760 ⇒ 00:24:05.140 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: And like, oh yeah, that’s because this tax was passed in July last year. And so, that’s why it’s super hard to bring software to the Philippines, because there’s already that added 37, you know, 37%
164 00:24:05.250 ⇒ 00:24:15.630 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: add-on fee, basically, from the VAT tax. And so, we’re lobbying right now to try and get to, you know, to try and change that.
165 00:24:15.760 ⇒ 00:24:23.080 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: As otherwise, like, the Philippines is gonna be innovatively stagnant if that tax continues to persist.
166 00:24:23.230 ⇒ 00:24:31.049 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: Because no one’s going to be able to really want to sell into the country. Not only that, but only the big companies would be able to, like.
167 00:24:31.610 ⇒ 00:24:33.080 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: use that software.
168 00:24:33.690 ⇒ 00:24:35.379 Brylle Girang: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
169 00:24:35.380 ⇒ 00:24:41.300 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: no person would be able to afford it. No regular Filipino would be able to afford, like, half the software that is being used.
170 00:24:42.040 ⇒ 00:24:53.010 Brylle Girang: I hope it pushes through. Well, it has been the case here for, like, 10 to 20 years now, so I hope this will be a major change. But yeah, I am… I am hoping.
171 00:24:53.340 ⇒ 00:24:57.139 Brylle Girang: So what are your goals here at Brainforge?
172 00:24:58.220 ⇒ 00:25:09.150 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: So, well, one, Robert reached out to me, and once again, he’s a very good friend of mine, and whenever he… whenever he directly calls me, it’s always something important. And so…
173 00:25:09.150 ⇒ 00:25:19.629 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: So for one, you know, I want to help him out. I think the goals that he set out and the revenue targets that he wants to hit, I think are very achievable.
174 00:25:19.650 ⇒ 00:25:22.010 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: And leveraging my network.
175 00:25:22.790 ⇒ 00:25:24.980 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: you know, I’m more than happy to…
176 00:25:26.990 ⇒ 00:25:43.829 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: and try to close them, right? And so, in general, my goals are just, like, yeah, help Brainforge hit their revenue targets, I think. Okay. I enjoy, like, like I said, I used to… I used to be more involved in the data space,
177 00:25:43.920 ⇒ 00:25:59.790 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: And I’ve had, you know, I was a certified partner for MixedPanel and Amplitude at one point, had, you know, no longer now, but back in the day, had contacts at Snowflake, and, you know, so did the whole shebang, right? But,
178 00:26:00.270 ⇒ 00:26:05.830 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: But yeah, now it’s just, like, there’s a goal of mine to, like, rapidly
179 00:26:06.040 ⇒ 00:26:12.089 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: to rapidly push, AI transformation in some of these companies. Okay.
180 00:26:13.240 ⇒ 00:26:15.699 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: And it’s like, I know it’s, like, kind of…
181 00:26:16.900 ⇒ 00:26:24.829 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: it’s, like, not, like, the best of goals, in my opinion, but, like, I think with the rate things are going, I think the more companies that…
182 00:26:24.920 ⇒ 00:26:37.279 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: use AI and know how to scale it properly, the better for, just the better for a lot of the space, I think. There’s just a lot of waste and usage and, like.
183 00:26:37.410 ⇒ 00:26:57.120 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: not re… not the right education around using, AI in your workflows and AI inside of your business. And I don’t want to start my own company to, like, to do those types of services, so this is, like, perfect. I’m more than happy to sell into places with the service offerings and product offerings, like, that are here, so…
184 00:26:57.290 ⇒ 00:26:58.210 Brylle Girang: Okay.
185 00:26:58.210 ⇒ 00:27:06.270 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: Because I’m always meeting people, like, real, it’s always, it’s always, and Robert knows that, like, I have, I have, like.
186 00:27:06.720 ⇒ 00:27:08.650 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: An incredible amount of…
187 00:27:09.430 ⇒ 00:27:18.229 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: of random connections. And I don’t… and if I don’t have anything to sell, I don’t really sell anything, but if I have something to sell, then I’m always selling, so…
188 00:27:18.230 ⇒ 00:27:19.209 Brylle Girang: Okay, yeah, yeah.
189 00:27:19.210 ⇒ 00:27:19.740 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: Yeah.
190 00:27:20.010 ⇒ 00:27:35.720 Brylle Girang: Okay, well, I am excited because I was just talking with Utam earlier, and one of the major shifts that we’re doing this quarter is we’re building, like, a learning and development team here in Brainforge, which will focus on pushing AI adoption to our people.
191 00:27:35.720 ⇒ 00:27:41.959 Brylle Girang: Making sure that they follow our standards. Providing, like, the instruments for our people to actually learn.
192 00:27:42.010 ⇒ 00:27:46.260 Brylle Girang: And… use AI natively, internally.
193 00:27:46.380 ⇒ 00:27:56.730 Brylle Girang: And one of the main goals that I shared with Utam is that I don’t want this learning and development piece to just be an internal thing. I want this to be a service in the future.
194 00:27:56.730 ⇒ 00:28:10.159 Brylle Girang: Where, as you mentioned, I want Brainforge to be able to connect with companies and tell them, hey, we can teach you how to use AI. We can teach you how to actually implement AI within your teams, within your organizations.
195 00:28:10.590 ⇒ 00:28:26.200 Brylle Girang: So, I think we are on the… we are on the same path here. Like, you… you want to… you want to help companies implement AI, you want to help companies actually learn how to… how to use AI, and that’s also one of my main goals within this year.
196 00:28:27.180 ⇒ 00:28:34.439 Brylle Girang: I think we’re going to work together here. This is something that I’m going to be proposing to Robert, maybe on Friday.
197 00:28:36.430 ⇒ 00:28:47.640 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: Okay, yeah, I mean, I’m… I’m just here… I’m just here to make deals happen, Bria. If you have more to sell, if it’s a learning program, then that’s… I’ll… I’ll sell a learning program. Yeah.
198 00:28:48.000 ⇒ 00:28:50.769 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: I think, yeah, it’s,
199 00:28:51.200 ⇒ 00:28:58.559 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: it’s very surprising how far behind some companies that I currently work with are.
200 00:28:58.990 ⇒ 00:29:04.170 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: And when I say far behind, I mean, like, they’re still using ChatGPT,
201 00:29:05.520 ⇒ 00:29:10.130 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: That’s… that’s all they use, is that they’ll… they’ll put stuff in there, and…
202 00:29:10.300 ⇒ 00:29:20.439 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: whatever the outputs are is what they’ll put into a document. And I’m like, you know, we’re past that. You know, we can do full AI agentic orchestration workflows, we can…
203 00:29:21.690 ⇒ 00:29:26.160 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: we can push tickets now, like, setting up MCPs take minutes.
204 00:29:27.130 ⇒ 00:29:45.670 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: like, we… we gotta do better, like, otherwise these… all these companies are gonna collapse, and that’s why we see the stock price for so many of these tech companies go down. It’s… and that’s why they’re laying off so many folks in these tech companies, is because the ones who are… are actually doing it properly are the ones that are staying, and like…
205 00:29:45.780 ⇒ 00:29:53.679 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: The outlier folks, the ones that can, like, 10x their productivity, are the ones that are, rapidly moving, so…
206 00:29:54.030 ⇒ 00:30:08.000 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: Yeah, so I agree with you. I’m all for learning and education, and there’s a lot of people who… there’s a lot of folks that are doing it the wrong way, too, so I’m curious… I’m curious to see what you, like, what your L&D program would look like.
207 00:30:11.770 ⇒ 00:30:14.220 Brylle Girang: What do you think is the right way to do it?
208 00:30:16.080 ⇒ 00:30:22.869 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: Well, I’ve… so I always have a three-pronged approach when it comes to developing, like, any type of learning programs.
209 00:30:23.080 ⇒ 00:30:33.349 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: And what it comes down to is, like, one, you know, you have, dynamic learning, so keep it so that folks can learn the topics and…
210 00:30:33.420 ⇒ 00:30:48.990 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: And, what it is they’re trying to engage in, in a dynamic way. So whether that’s, like, repetition, whether that’s, you know, flashcards, whether that’s, like, quizzes, it’s like, there should always be… AI can make it so easy to make the information dynamic, right?
211 00:30:48.990 ⇒ 00:30:49.850 Brylle Girang: Second.
212 00:30:49.850 ⇒ 00:31:01.139 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: hands-on experience, hands-on labs. And by the way, this is… I based all of this, not based on all this, I studied education in college, so I had a minor, so I was very…
213 00:31:01.370 ⇒ 00:31:07.410 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: One of my theses was about LMS systems, and so…
214 00:31:09.140 ⇒ 00:31:19.720 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: Second one is hands-on experience in labs. And before, it would usually take pretty long to build out, like, simulations and stuff. With AI, that’s an artifact.
215 00:31:19.900 ⇒ 00:31:20.460 Brylle Girang: Yeah.
216 00:31:20.960 ⇒ 00:31:32.840 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: Which is, like, I mean, you can prompt something that can immediately showcase or simulate, to, to whatever standards or to whatever workflow that the student is, is, you know…
217 00:31:32.840 ⇒ 00:31:33.730 Brylle Girang: comfortable with.
218 00:31:33.940 ⇒ 00:31:44.509 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: Which is insane. Like, those two things, dynamic and, like, hands-on experience workshops, once again, very manual things that a really good teacher used to have to do. Yeah.
219 00:31:44.730 ⇒ 00:31:47.329 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: those things exist now. And then the last one.
220 00:31:47.730 ⇒ 00:31:59.929 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: is something that can answer your questions, right? So they usually have, like, a community forum, you have, like, a comment section on, like, videos, or, you would have, like, an instructor, like, host office hours.
221 00:31:59.990 ⇒ 00:32:09.530 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: guess what? We have AI chatbots. So all three of the core tenets of, like, very, very strong reinforcement learning for a student,
222 00:32:09.600 ⇒ 00:32:21.989 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: now has an AI equivalent, which is, once again, very, very, like, we’re in a very, very different world now in education technology. But yeah, but that’s basically the three-pronged approach, is
223 00:32:21.990 ⇒ 00:32:30.839 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: yeah, dynamic learning, on-hands experience, and one-on-one tutoring. And if you have those three things, like.
224 00:32:30.890 ⇒ 00:32:50.100 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: you’ll generally see, especially the papers that I had written in college, those things had, like, the most effective retention and acquisition of knowledge. That framework is, like, pretty much the standard for… there’s a standard agreement within the education space that that three-pronged approach is
225 00:32:50.190 ⇒ 00:32:58.700 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: works incredibly well. And you’ll see that in, like, most language learning. Like, pretty much every language learning app follows that three-pronged approach.
226 00:32:59.310 ⇒ 00:32:59.870 Brylle Girang: Yeah.
227 00:33:00.270 ⇒ 00:33:06.970 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: But yeah, like, that’s… that’s… that’s kind of… that’s kind of how I would approach it. Yep.
228 00:33:06.970 ⇒ 00:33:15.849 Brylle Girang: That helps, that helps, and yeah, we’re not going to treat this as, hey, here’s a document with this, and then here’s your certification. It’s not going to be.
229 00:33:15.850 ⇒ 00:33:26.889 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: That’s… that is most… that is most LMS systems right now, at least, like, enterprise LMS systems. So there is a play, too, real, if you want to… if you want to, like.
230 00:33:26.960 ⇒ 00:33:40.670 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: you know, create a standard… standard for that type of thing, LMS. Like, there’s just not… yeah. Like, people don’t know how to put all that stuff together. Like, they don’t know how to make those three systems generally work.
231 00:33:40.670 ⇒ 00:33:42.920 Brylle Girang: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
232 00:33:43.080 ⇒ 00:33:51.759 Brylle Girang: All right! Oh, we’re over time. Thank you, I really appreciate this time, Jarrett. It was really nice meeting you. I hope we get to work more soon.
233 00:33:51.760 ⇒ 00:34:00.529 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: Yes, yeah, we will. I’m looking… yeah, I’m looking forward to it. We should have used this time to also talk about, like, how you guys do your cursor…
234 00:34:00.950 ⇒ 00:34:06.410 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: agent workflow, but we’ll set up another time for that. Okay, yeah. Yeah, sure!
235 00:34:06.410 ⇒ 00:34:15.089 Brylle Girang: I think you’re going to be a big help there, but yeah, I’m going to, like, get another 30 minutes of your time, maybe next week, and then let’s talk about that. Would that be fine?
236 00:34:15.090 ⇒ 00:34:17.459 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: Yep, yep, that’s… that’s perfect, let’s do it.
237 00:34:17.469 ⇒ 00:34:28.019 Brylle Girang: Also, I might, if it’s okay with you, I might run through the learning and development plan, once it’s approved by Otem and Robert, with you, so that I can get more feedback, and…
238 00:34:28.379 ⇒ 00:34:30.249 Brylle Girang: Try to get your thoughts there.
239 00:34:30.639 ⇒ 00:34:35.749 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: Yeah, of course. Yeah, I… that’s, that’s my bread and butter, so let me know. Alright. I’m happy to help.
240 00:34:36.360 ⇒ 00:34:38.019 Brylle Girang: Gotcha. Thank you. Bye, man.
241 00:34:38.639 ⇒ 00:34:40.399 Jorrel Sto. Tomas: Bye, good night over there.
242 00:34:40.560 ⇒ 00:34:41.920 Brylle Girang: Good night.