An air of excitement filled the streets of Araneta City as the local tech community convened for another year of Samsung Open Source Conference Philippines (SOSCON PH) 2024 last October 12 at Novotel Manila. This year marked the third installment and second onsite conference of SOSCON PH, which traced its origins in South Korea back in 2014. This year, over 300 professionals, educators, and students attended the event, making this the biggest SOSCON PH thus far.

Under the theme “Weaving Tomorrow’s Techscape”, SOSCON PH 2024 featured 14 speakers comprised of industry experts, academicians, and Samsung R&D Institute Philippines(SRPH) engineers, each discussed the significant role of open source software and its capabilities to power innovation in the age of AI. This year’s event was hosted by SRPH talents Hans Yu (Software Engineering Team) and Jona Cruz (People Group).

Opening SOSCON PH 2024 is Head Of R&D Center SRPH, Yong Seok Park, who emphasized the importance of evolution in our current tech landscape: "Technology is constantly evolving and transforming our lives. These changes present possibilities beyond our imagination, and challenge us to create a better tomorrow," said Park. "This challenge can only be addressed through our collective participation, collaboration, and creativity through values intrinsic to open source technology development."

Meanwhile, SRPH Learning and Development Head Loisa Amat-Buenafe highlighted the work of SRPH and its open source journey:“[We] started with a Linux Kernel contribution, and since then, Samsung has contributed to numerous open source projects, including Android and Tizen,” stated Buenafe.

Also in attendance were SRPH department heads: Mr. Christian Enriquez (Cloud Solutions Team), Mr. Michael Pascua (Cloud Operations Team), Mr. Gelvin Gamez (Mobile Services Team), Mr. Christopher Balcos (Network R&D Team), and Mr. Goodwealth Chu (Software Engineering Team).

For this year, the speakers and their presentations were divided into four sessions. Starting the conference was the session on the Ethical Standards of AI, with talks from Carlos Catalan (Engineer, SRPH), Ruelle Yutuc (Lead Engineer, SRPH), and Jeffrey Kenneth Go (Lead Engineer, SRPH), and Michel Onasis Ogbinuar (Data and Analytics Head, San Miguel Corporation)

Continuing to the second session, AI in Speech and Vision, presentations were given by Dr. Rowel Atienza (Professor, University of the Philippines College of Engineering) and Jessan Rendell Belenzo (Multimodel Learning Researcher, UP Diliman).

For the third session, AI and Language Models, the presenters were Mark Jermaine Pontiveros (Engineer, White Widget Ltd.), Nikko Yabut (AI Researcher, UP Diliman), Engr. Aunhel Adoptante (Project Technical Co-Lead, Computer Software Division, Department of Science and Technology- Advanced Science and Technology Institute), and Toni-Jan Keith Monserrat (Chief Technology Officer, Senti Techlabs, Inc.).

The final session of SOSCON PH emphasized the role of AI in Business and Applications. Speakers were Andoy Montiel (Chief Technology Officer, Packworks), Jiggs Cabiles (Engineer, SRPH), Dr. Gino Sampedro (Founder and CEO, Philippine Coding Camp), and Michelle Alarcon (Co-founder and President of the Analytics and Artificial Intelligence Association of the Philippines (AAP).

More than the bevy of experts, SOSCON PH 2024 was made stronger by the support from tech communities, private companies and industry organization, and student organizations. Data Engineering Pilipinas, Kalibrr, Analytics and AI Association of the Philippines, ReactJS Philippines, UP Society of Computer Scientists (UP SOCOMSCI), and the University of the Philippines Association of Computer Science Majors (UP CURSOR), all signed up to be the event partners for this year’s installment.

Apart from their support, Open Source Software Philippines, DEVCON PH, and Philippine Coding Camp also set up booths outside the halls, providing additional entertainment and event giveaways to all attendees and AWS Cloud Club Philippines gave away additional prizes to conference participants.

Speaking to some of the attendees on their SOSCON PH experience, their responses were mostly positive and enthusiastic. “This year's SOSCON PH was highly insightful given the wide range of topics about the nature of open source, its tools, and its intersection with AI,” stated Karl Marquez

“As someone who has a background in Linguistics, I found how significant language and the analysis thereof are to the development of AI. SOSCONPH 2024 made me realize that despite being not so "techy," I can make contributions in the field of AI,” said Sarah Perlawan.

“I loved learning about how open source can be applied to solve or offer a starting point in solving problems at every level. Another highlight would be getting to know the local communities we have that drive the tech community here in the Philippines… It’s nice to know that our engineers have organizations like these to connect and collaborate with others in the country,” shared Erris Tan.

The Samsung Open Source Conference is one of the initiatives of Samsung to promote openness, innovation, and collaboration in its regional subsidiaries and Samsung Software Developer Community. We’d like to express our utmost gratitude to everyone who contributed to the success of this year’s SOSCON PH, and we hope to see you all next year for an even bigger and better SOSCON PH 2025!