Speakers

Living on a 'glass-half-full' perspective, I strive to make the lives of others better everyday.

Through my vast professional experience in Banking, Telecommunications and New Media, I have been doing so by seeking out and executing groundbreaking technologies that help ease and enable cash management to our corporate partners, retail customers and even emerging communities. 

I foster an exciting working environment where passion and excellence meet and imagination and innovation are always on top of the agenda. 

While I'm not disrupting the banking landscape, I am a fantastic father to 6 incredible children, loving husband to an amazing wife.

I heavily focus on public policy issues and legal implications of digital currencies and blockchain technology. I serve the legal, regulatory, licensing and compliance requirements of various cryptocurrency-based businesses and blockchain projects. Having in mind the quickly developing blockchain space, I guide clients on legal developments as well as advocate and represent them in championing sensible regulatory frameworks.

I am the CEO and a founding partner of MergeCommit, a software company that provides blockchain-based products and services to companies around the world.

As the chief executive, I am responsible for strategic planning, execution as well as corporate governance. I work with different facets of the organization to help them succeed in their designated departments.

Prior to starting MergeCommit, I have over a decade of work experience in the service design and software engineering industry. My work includes long-term projects with small to big brands helping companies reach their vision by translating their ideas into solid plans of action.

In 2013, I co-founded the first bitcoin exchange in the Philippines called BuyBitcoin.ph that got eventually sold to a bitcoin investment group in 2015.

Luis started working in the Bitcoin space in 2014 and, with his startup Bloom, focuses on bringing the blockchain to remittance businesses around the world. He authored the book "Reinventing Remittances with Bitcoin," which collects strategies and stories about the fast-growing Bitcoin remittance industry. (https://bit.ly/remitbook)

His writing has been featured on Quartz, Techcrunch, The Next Web, Tech in Asia, and Rappler. He's presented on these topics at Inside Bitcoins Singapore, the International Money Transfer Conference (IMTC) in Madrid, San Francisco, Las Vegas and Miami, BlockFin Vietnam, and the Brookings Blum Roundtable in Aspen. In 2017, he co-presented the first Remittance Technology Awards at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.

Luis has been building tech startups in the Philippines for over a decade, blogs at https://medium.com/@cryptonight, and draws nerdy cartoons at https://cryptopop.net.

Lito is the country’s leading inclusive digital finance accelerator, subject matter expert, and award-winning thought leader and innovator. He is one of the founding executives of Voyager Innovations and PayMaya. He started PLDT Group’s FinTech business and made it as the country’s biggest FinTech startup company with the most extensive digital footprint covering all 81 provinces. He has founded KasamaKA as a national movement for financial inclusion and social advocacy for inclusive growth supported by various local government leagues and commended by the Philippine Senate.  He was the first and only Filipino to be included in Asia’s Top 100 FinTech Leaders. He received close to 50 accolades in four years such as the BSP Outstanding Financial Inclusion Partner, Asia Responsible Enterprise Award for social empowerment, and the Asian Banker’s Consumer Finance Product of the Year awards, among others. He was formerly with Visa and International Finance Corporation of the World Bank Group. He is currently the chairman of the FinTechAlliance.ph, the industry group composed of leading digital companies in the country today.

The current objective is to tokenize anything of value, including Fiat currency, rewards, cryptocurrencies,company shares, Non Fungible Tokens (NFTs) for the virtual and real world and much more.