Adrian Josh Lepiten 
[Cebu City] March 22, 2022— University of the Philippines Diliman (UPD) and University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB), together with the Department of Science and Technology Advanced Science and Technology Institute (DOST-ASTI) space science and technology have won the top honors of the second Hitachi Global Foundation Asia Innovation Awards.
Three teams from the Philippines are among the twelve recipients of the ASEAN region award program’s 2021 edition, which promotes science, technology, and innovation to achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals through research on innovative mining, sustainable agriculture, and space technology for watershed protection (UN SDGs).
In the second year of the award program, the Filipino-led teams fought against teams from Southeast Asian nations such as Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam. The winners were announced on January 31, 2022.
Participants from universities and institutions are asked to submit R&D accomplishments in science and technology that contribute to the SDGs’ Goal 14 “Life Below Water” and Goal 15 “Life on Land” objectives for this year.
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The following are the Filipino honorees of the 2021 Hitachi Global Foundation Asia Innovation Award program:
Herman Dumpit Mendoza
Outstanding Innovation Award
Professor Herman Dumpit Mendoza of the Department of Mining, Metallurgical, and Materials Engineering of the University of the Philippines won the Outstanding Innovation Award with his research “Community-Led Integrated Non-Mercury Non-Cyanide Gold Extraction Method (CLINN-GEM) Technology for People’s Empowerment and Participation.
This research was developed in continuous collaboration with small-mining communities. It’s a clean and sustainable gold mineral processing technology that eliminates the use of mercury and cyanide which are harmful to the environment and our health.
Virginia Castillo Cuevas
Encouragement Award
Dr. Virginia Castillo of the University of the Philippines Los Baños together with her colleagues Dr. Charina Gracia B. Banaay and Dr. Alfredo M. Sinohin won the Encouragement Award with research “Trichoderma Technology for Sustainable Agriculture.”
This research aims to help small Filipino farmers whose livelihoods are greatly affected by events such as El Niño and La Niña, as well as strong typhoons.
The study Trichoderma technology (TT) includes “activator for rapid decomposition of agricultural wastes and Trichoderma microbial inoculant (TMI) for crop growth promotion, biocontrol of crops’ diseases and biofertilizer.”
Roel Mallari de la Cruz
Encouragement Award
The DOST-ASTI’s space science and technology team which is led by engineer Roel Mallari de la Cruz received the Encourage Award with their research “Space-Based Management and Monitoring System for Watershed Protection.”
This research aims to “develop a satellite-based monitoring system for forest and watershed resource management that will enable access to innovation on technologies through remote sensing and geospatial analysis.”
According to DOST-ASTI, the partnerships seek to combine hazard maps and EO data suitable for forest and watershed monitoring, as well as aquaculture mapping such as fisheries, fish cage, fish pens, seaweeds, oyster/mussels farm site management using the remote. sensing and geospatial analysis.
The Hitachi Global Foundation Asia Innovation Award is an award program launched in 2020 to advance science, technology, and innovation that contribute to solving social issues and realizing a sustainable society in the ASEAN region.
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