Camille Naredo

Young people use social media apps on their mobile phones and computers as they attend  the forum, Keeping the Flame of Freedom Alive: Case Study of Percy Lapid Mabasa, at the CMC Auditorium Plaridel Hall UP Diliman Quezon City on October 3, 2023.

Young people use social media apps on their mobile phones and computers as they attend  the forum, Keeping the Flame of Freedom Alive: Case Study of Percy Lapid Mabasa, at the CMC Auditorium Plaridel Hall UP Diliman Quezon City on October 3, 2023. Jonathan Cellona, ABS-CBN News

Article (news)

MEDIA-KILLINGS

Agatha Gregorio

ABS-CBN News

MANILA -- Gen Z Filipinos are creating apps to push for improvement in sectors such as transportation, housing, and agriculture. Behind the train arrival estimation app Rush-PH and the housing platform Dormy PH are Pinoys in their 20s. Another app in development, AgriConnect, was made by a 22-year-old who has since brought his idea to six different countries. Citing his own struggles as a commuter, 23-year-old Joshua Bumanlag created Rush-PH around a month ago to prevent wasted time waiting for the train while commuting. The web-based app gathers reports from website users to estimate when trains at a certain LRT-1, MRT-3, or LRT-2 station will arrive. <div><a class="fr-green" href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/news/technology/2025/6/27/pinoy-gen-z-develops-mrt-lrt-train-tracking-app-to-ease-commuter-woes-1828">Pinoy Gen Z develops crowd-powered MRT, LRT train-tracking app to ease commuter woes</a></div>&quot;So for example, if you&#x27;re in Pedro Gil, you should see na, okay, I know na for the northbound train, it&#x27;s going to be three minutes away... Even the older demographic can sift or click through this UI (user interface) very, very easily. So we have LRT-1, MRT-3, and LRT-2,&quot; Bumanlag said. Aside from the estimation time, a map is also accessible on the website to help foreigners and Filipinos outside Metro Manila navigate the train systems. Bumanlag calls the app his &quot;passion project,&quot; even paying to buy a domain for Rush-PH. The app became available on rush-ph.com on Saturday, June 28. Prior to this, the platform Netlify hosted Rush-PH. &quot;So I&#x27;m planning to make this, for now, open source, meaning people can contribute. Tech people can contribute to me while me governing the changes. So that&#x27;s how open source works in the first place. But I think I should open this for now with my friends and some other people that I know in the tech community,&quot; Bumanlag said. Made by a group of Gen Z co-founders, Dormy PH is an app meant to digitize rentals in the country. Here, potential tenants can look for available rentals such as apartment and condo units based on location. Two years since its launch, Dormy PH has garnered a monthly audience of 2,000,000. &quot;So, one of our users is an OFW who wanted to try real estate as a passive income stream ... So we helped them or him with his first condo. And it got fully booked. So encouraged by the results, he reinvested his earning from his first booking. And he bought two more units. So there&#x27;s three in his portfolio already, right? So all three properties are already fully occupied,&quot; Dormy PH Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer Alyssa Wee said. Dormy PH Co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer Sean Francisco added that their young age has helped them market the start-up better. &quot;Even if we&#x27;re just browsing TikTok, we&#x27;re able to analyze trends and then look at the keywords that actually work then integrate it into our creative process,&quot; Francisco said. People belonging to Gen Z were born from 1997 to 2012 and are now aged 13 to 28 years old. <div><a class="fr-green" href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/news/technology/2025/6/29/tv-patrol-ilang-gen-z-apps-tumutulong-sa-transportasyon-agrikultura-at-pabahay-1832">TV PATROL: Ilang Gen Z Apps tumutulong sa transportasyon, agrikultura at pabahay </a> </div>Even before its launch, an app pitched by a Gen Z Filipino is already making waves overseas. At 22 years old, Soj Gamayon became the first Filipino to win an innovation competition in Tokyo, Japan back in 2024 for his project AgriConnect. &quot;It has taken me places, but not because of me. I don&#x27;t attribute it to my pitching or my prowess, but it&#x27;s more of like the purpose. People believe in the vision. People understand who I&#x27;m doing it for,&quot; Gamayon said, adding he was inspired by his uncle who is a farmer. The app in development would use artificial intelligence (AI) so agribusinesses could manage risks in farming. &quot;And how it works, it&#x27;s simply actually first getting data-- collecting data from smart sensors that we plant in the corners of the field.  And it looks at the three main sources of these risks like soil moisture, water levels, and pest and insect movement, manifestations, and diseases. And from the data that we collect from the farm, we put it into our cloud ... And this is where the AI comes in. So the AI basically interprets the data that we collected from the farms, and it gives the farmers insights on what to do,&quot; Gamayon said. App developers Bumanlag and Gutierrez offered advice for fellow Gen Z Filipinos with bright ideas to innovate using tech. &quot;In order to make something impactful, it&#x27;s better to create something with a purpose,&quot; Bumanlag said. &quot;Look, 19-year-old Mark Zuckerberg touched Facebook, and you know what happened to that. So, I think it&#x27;s not really about the age, but it&#x27;s more about the competence. Just find a problem worth solving and one that actually exists. And you don&#x27;t want to be a solution in search of a problem. And number two is to try to build a team with intersectional skills,&quot; Gutierrez added.

Gen Z Filipinos are creating apps to push for improvement in sectors such as transportation, housing, and agriculture.

Gen Z Filipinos are creating apps to push for improvement in sectors such as transportation, housing, and agriculture.

Gen Z Filipinos making apps to innovate in transportation, housing, agri sectors

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Gen Z Filipinos making apps to innovate in transportation, housing, agri sectors

Agatha Gregorio,

ABS-CBN News

Published Jun 29, 2025 08:59 PM PHT

Read More:

App

Gen Z

Filipino

youth

tech

agri

transportation

Housing

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