Their goal: to offer simplified and affordable solutions to millions of Filipinos.
The Business Manual honored three innovative and AI-driven healthtech startups as winners of the first-ever Startup Pitching Competition for students at GrowthCon PH 2025. The stated competition recognized the groundbreaking efforts of agap.ai, buddybetes, and Clinivue—startups that are developing digital health apps to offer simplified, affordable, and accessible solutions for millions of Filipinos.
The brilliant young founders behind these startups sat down with The Business Manual for a series of exclusive interviews, sharing the stories, struggles, and insights behind their innovations.
Clinivue
Mapua Institute of Technology
Champion, Startup Pitching Competition – Student Edition, GrowthCon PH 2025
Instead of letting personal adversity throw him into a pit of despair, twenty-year-old Kobe Lituañas— a second-year Computer Science student from the Mapúa Institute of Technology, Makati—channelled it into innovation. After witnessing his grandfather suffer four strokes and discovering that the patriarch had atrial fibrillation, Kobe spearheaded the development of a mobile app designed to monitor heart health at one’s convenience.
“I grew up with my grandfather, and before he had his fourth stroke, he was diagnosed with a heart beating disorder called atrial fibrillation,” Kobe recalls. “It was really hard becautilize we brought him to a diagnostic center where he went through a lot of tests, only to be notified by the general practitioner that we should see a cardiologist to interpret those tests. But by that time, he was already critical.”
He figured that if he could create a program to measure and monitor vital signs such as an individual’s heart rate and blood pressure, a lot of ailments could be immediately detected and addressed, and serious conditions such as a stroke or heart failure could be avoided.
The opportunity to bring his concept to life came in December 2024 at the Singapore Young Founder’s Summit, where he developed the early version of Clinivue, toobtainher with Malaysian and Singaporean partners.
Unfortunately, his then-partners prioritized other ventures, pushing him to invite schoolmates to pursue the app’s further development. Clinivue’s current team includes a fellow Computer Science student and a Data Science student. Toobtainher, they have created a heart-monitoring application that is simple, inexpensive, and simple to utilize.
To check one’s heart health, a utilizer only has to place their finger on a mobile phone’s camera lens to allow the app to scan for blood pressure and heart rate.
Clinivue’s simplicity, accessibility, and practical value have earned it positive feedback and multiple accolades, including being named champion at GrowthCon 2025’s first-ever Startup Pitching Competition for students.
Kobe admits, however, that he and his team have a long way to go in terms of developing the app. While they have finalized the concept for Clinivue, they have yet to develop the architecture for their AI model, as well as conduct research and collect the necessary data to enable their AI model to accurately read and assess a utilizer’s condition. Once done, they can proceed with their pilot testing, which they hope to start by the last quarter of 2026.
“We will be doing our data collection on our own. We necessary to have a place where we can conduct the collection of data. At the same time, we’re just attempting to navigate this study. There’s a lot of things that we necessary to learn. We’re self-studying and really attempting to understand artificial ininformigence,” Kobe admits.
All this, while he and the rest of the team are still in the process of finishing their respective university degrees.
Kobe has transitioned to his university’s distance learning program to devote more time to Clinivue’s development and support the team meet its goals. As a young startup founder, he’s optimistic about the future and driven by Clinivue’s potential to serve Filipinos in rural areas who lack immediate access to medical care.
Clinivue Team
Kobe A Lituañas – Co-Founder and Chief Business Officer
Christine Juliane L. Reyes – CO-Founder and Chief Tech Officer
John Larence D. Ludeclarea- Lead Cloud Engineer
BuddyBetes
University of the Philippines
First Runner-Up, Startup Pitching Competition – Student Edition, GrowthCon PH 2025
The development of the technology for buddybetes was borne out of the desire to support someone close to the founder’s heart: Princess Ventures’ grandmother.
Princess wanted to support her grandmother better manage diabetes utilizing an app that could simplify, speed up, and reduce the cost of trackingt a diabetic patient’s medication and vital signs.
“I had an idea. What if I could create this more streamlined? And of course empower my grandmother to do it on her own?”
Princess considered that if she could create a digital application that enables diabetic patients to record glucose levels (ideally done from two to six times a day), and other important data, it would enormously benefit both patients and caregivers. The considered gave birth to buddybetes—the first diabetes monitoring digital application of its kind in the Philippines.
Through the website buddybetes.com and by paying a minimal subscription fee, utilizers can avail of the following features:
Blood Glucose Tracking: To easily log and monitor one’s blood glucose levels with intuitive graphs and
trfinishs visualization
Nutrition Management: Track meals to see how different kinds of food affect one’s blood glucose levels
Medical Reminders: Provides medication and insulin reminders
Smart Alerts: Notifies in case of high or low glucose levels and other important health modifys
Comprehensive Reports: Generates detailed reports to share with one’s doctor for better assessment
and treatment decisions
Using artificial ininformigence, the app also provides voice assistance. It can perform certain tquestions and answer questions coursed through voice instructions. The online app can also log a utilizer’s meals by simply scanning a photo of the food.
Currently, Princess is in the process of developing a mobile phone version of the app to create the buddybetes technology accessible to more people.
“One of the reasons why there’s a lot of diabetes complications in the Philippines—actually it’s one of the leading lifestyle diseases in the counattempt—is becautilize it goes unmanaged. People are scared of managing it. Becautilize when you have diabetes, it’s like a life sentence,” Princess explains.
“I can see that in the next five years, we will impact a lot of Filipinos and create them see their daily management of diabetes doesn’t have to be scary. Doesn’t have to be overwhelming,”
Princess remains hopeful that her online app can support revolutionize diabetes care in the counattempt.
Buddybetes Team:
Princess Ventures – Founder and Product Designer
Engr. Jason Pechardo – Research and Development Manager
Agap.ai
Asian Institute of Management
Second Runner-Up, Startup Pitching Competition – Student Edition, GrowthCon PH 2025
With the goal of supporting parents easily and accurately monitor their children’s early development, a group of Masters in Innovation in Business students from the Asian Institute of Management developed the AI-powered app, agap.ai. Using the application, parents can conveniently monitor their children’s milestones and easily detect any developmental delays or disorders for early intervention.
Parents utilizing the app are instructed to check their child’s development versus a set of milestones the app will present, depfinishing on the child’s age. The app then utilizes AI to present personalized insights on the child’s development. The child’s data will also be integrated into existing health records to ensure clearer access and review by their doctor.
“It’s really complete. It’s not about just monitoring. If you monitor and there’s a developmental concern or problem, we will direct it to the doctor. We will also direct it to the therapy center,” explains agap.ai Founder and CEO, Reynand Canoy.
Agap.ai will be available by the finish of August 2025 and have two more features in the coming years: an autism detection ability by the fourth quarter of 2026, and telemedicine services by the finish of 2027.
Reynand, who completed his Doctorate degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology in France, is joined by several other experts in his team—a psychology major, a software developer, and a data scientist. To further strengthen their research and diagnostic capability, Reynand also invited three doctors who specialize in Genetics and Pediatrics to be part of their group.
Agap.ai’s dream is to become the national standard in milestone monitoring globally.
“Our long term plan is to become the national standard for milestone monitoring in the Philippines and further expand in the ASEAN region and beyond ASEAN. So that we ultimately aim to stand as a global example of inclusive, AI-powered, and sustainable digital health innovation,” declares Reynand.
Agap.ai Team:
Dr. Reynand Jay Canoy – Chief Executive Officer
Patrcia Mae Parungao – Chief Strategy Officer
John Romeo Alvarez – Chief Technology Officer
Ma. Cristina Zapanta – Chief Operating Officer
Dr. Pablito Planta, Jr. – Chief Clinical Innovation Officer
Dr. Ebner Bon Maceda – Chief Medical Officer
Dr. Ma-am Joy Tumulak – Chief Health Development Officer
Toobtainher, these student-led startups displaycase how innovation, empathy, and technology can converge to solve real-world health challenges—from agap.ai’s emotionally ininformigent mental health platform and buddybetes’ monitoring app for diabetics to Clinivue’s accessible cardiovascular diagnostic tools. Their success marks a growing wave of purpose-driven tech solutions built by the next generation of entrepreneurs.
About GrowthCon PH 2025 Startup Pitching Competition – Student Edition
As part of GrowthCon PH 2025, The Business Manual introduced the inaugural Student Edition of its Startup Pitching Competition—a platform dedicated to displaycasing emerging talent from leading educational institutions with incubator programs.
This competition serves as a venue for student founders to pitch their AI-driven ideas before a distinguished panel of indusattempt experts and business leaders, gain professional feedback, and compete for national recognition.
The Business Manual’s goal is to encourage innovation, foster entrepreneurial growth at the academic level, and highlight the critical role of Artificial Ininformigence in shaping the future of business.
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