Peace is often discussed in the language of policy, security, and diplomacy. In Mindanao, it is just as often shaped by jobs, functioning markets, and the ability of people to build livelihoods without leaving home.
That is where Upgrade Innolab Inc. has focused its work.
Founded in 2018 as a university-based technology business incubator, Upgrade Innolab later transitioned into an independent nonprofit. The shift was significant. It allowed the organization to move beyond campus-led innovation and operate closer to communities where inequality, underinvestment, and market failure are most visible.
What followed was not a branding exercise, but a deliberate expansion of influence at the local, regional, and national levels.
Building peace through enterprises
Upgrade does not describe itself as a peacebuilding organization. That restraint is precisely why its work matters.
Since its early years and through its evolution as an independent incubator, Upgrade has incubated more than 60 startups across technology, social enterprise, and sustainability sectors. Together, these ventures have raised over PHP 60 million in funding from grants, catalytic capital, and early-stage investments.
From an investor’s perspective, these figures are not simply performance indicators. They reflect founders choosing to stay in their regions, early teams earning stable income, suppliers entering formal value chains, and local markets becoming more viable for investment. In areas long shaped by exclusion and instability, this is how economic stabilization actually takes place.
Inclusion as an operating principle
Upgrade’s core assumption is straightforward. Innovation ecosystems that exclude women, community enterprises, and regional founders are inefficient and fragile.
This belief is evident in how programs are structured. When Upgrade incorporated as a nonprofit, it committed to scaling customized and gender-smart incubation, rather than adopting standard accelerator models built for founders with financial buffers, flexible schedules, and metropolitan networks.
A clear example is its role in implementing WHWiSE (Women Helping Women Innovating Social Enterprises) under DOST-PCIEERD. The program supported women-led enterprises not by lowering expectations, but by redesigning support systems such as mentorship pacing, peer engagement, and capital readiness to reflect real constraints faced by women entrepreneurs.
The result was not only improved gender inclusion, but a stronger and more resilient pipeline of founders.
From local incubation to regional system building
Upgrade’s influence extends well beyond individual startups. It has helped shape the institutional foundations of the Mindanao innovation ecosystem.
One of its most significant contributions is the founding of the Innovation and Development Accelerators Consortium for Startups in Davao Region, commonly known as IDEAS Davao. The consortium brought together universities, incubators, government agencies, and ecosystem builders into a coordinated regional platform for startup development.
IDEAS Davao later received a Presidential Award for Innovation and Technology Access, recognizing its role in expanding access to innovation infrastructure. For Upgrade, the award served as validation of a broader idea: regional ecosystems can be built intentionally rather than left to emerge unevenly.
By anchoring IDEAS Davao, Upgrade helped move the region away from fragmented support toward a more connected pipeline that links ideation, incubation, acceleration, and access to capital.
Community industries as investable systems
Upgrade’s regional strategy also includes strengthening community-based industries, particularly in agriculture and food systems.
In 2023, it facilitated the Social Impact Business Incubation Program for the Kapehan Sa Davao Network, supporting coffee enterprises across Region XI. In this context, coffee is not a lifestyle product. It is a complex value chain involving smallholder farmers, informal processors, and undercapitalized cooperatives.
By improving enterprise fundamentals such as pricing, operations, branding, and governance, Upgrade helped transform community industries into systems that can absorb capital and sustain growth. This work is gradual and often overlooked, but it directly addresses the economic fragility that undermines long-term peace.
Capital access as ecosystem infrastructure
Inclusion breaks down quickly without access to capital. Upgrade recognized early that many regional founders do not fail because of weak ideas, but because the first investment never materializes.
To address this gap, it helped establish the Davao Investors Network, a community of local angel and early-stage investors focused on backing startups emerging from Mindanao. Alongside this, initiatives such as the Davao Investors Mixer were designed to prioritize real deal flow over surface-level networking.
At the ecosystem level, this matters. Capital networks shape who is able to build, who can scale, and who exits early. By organizing investors locally, Upgrade reduced dependence on Manila-based capital and shortened the distance between founders and first-check investors.
Climate innovation with national relevance
Upgrade’s work has also gained national relevance through its focus on climate and circular economy innovation.
In 2025, the organization secured EU-backed support under the EU–Philippines Green Economy Partnership to implement CIRCULAB, a two-year accelerator for circular economy startups in Mindanao. The program supports early-stage ventures that convert waste streams into economic value, combining seed funding with hands-on venture building and ecosystem development.
While grounded in Mindanao, the program aligns closely with national priorities on green jobs, waste reduction, and sustainable industry. It positions regional founders not as peripheral contributors, but as active participants in national development goals.
What the portfolio reveals
Upgrade’s startup portfolio reflects this multi-level approach. Among the ventures it has supported are:
- Waste4Good, which converts biowaste into eco-friendly fertilizer
- Plantbox PH, which produces modular planters from upcycled materials
- Next2Fly, which transforms organic waste into eco-feeds and fertilizer inputs
- Ryori, which reduces food waste through digital restaurant operations
- Sureplus, which redistributes surplus goods to underserved communities
- Mustard Industrial Inc., which upcycles industrial waste into construction-ready materials
These are not speculative moonshots. They are practical infrastructure solutions that lower costs, reduce waste burdens, and create income opportunities in communities where margins are thin and volatility is high.
The underlying bet
Upgrade Innolab’s trajectory points to a clear thesis. Peace, equity, and inclusion do not scale through rhetoric alone. They scale through systems: enterprises that function, founders who stay rooted in their communities, capital that moves earlier, and institutions that coordinate rather than compete.
By incubating more than 60 startups, mobilizing over PHP 60 million in startup funding, founding a presidentially awarded regional consortium, and organizing local investor capital, Upgrade has positioned itself not merely as an incubator, but as ecosystem infrastructure.
In regions where opportunity has long been uneven, this may be one of the most credible and investable paths to durable peace.
