Good Things Happen When You Try | Developer Camp Manila 2026
My Experience at Developer Camp Manila
So Developer Camp Manila was actually my first ever hackathon.
You don’t really find opportunities like this in school reports, except maybe in schools that are privileged enough to hear about them. My school wasn’t one of those schools. It never really cared about competitions, and I hated that fact. I hated feeling under recognized, knowing I had a lot more to offer.
So one day, I took a ThinkPad I borrowed from my mother’s school and started searching for competitions.
I wanted to become an industrial designer in the tech community, but there were barely any opportunities. There was the KOKUYO Design Awards, but I wasn’t lucky enough to win. Maybe I wasn’t a good fit. Maybe I was from a different country. Maybe I was just 17 at the time. Either way, I was still proud of myself for trying.
As much as I wanted to prove my school wrong — that someone could outgrow the system they were placed in — it was becoming harder and harder to do so.
While scrolling through my feed looking for competitions, I found Developer Camp Manila. It was actually a post shared by Apple de Ap from the Black Eyed Peas. I don’t know why, but the moment I saw it, I became excited about all the possibilities.
Then reality hit me.
The registration fee was ₱3,000.
I remember begging my father just so I could join. Our family didn’t really have that much money, and I even counted my own savings.
₱1,154.
That was everything I had.
For a while, I thought I had to give up. All I could do was wait until my parents send our allowance and hope I could still register before the slots filled up.
The morning of the event, I was honestly nervous.
I kept asking myself,
“Why did I even join?”
I had no idea what I was supposed to bring to the table.
I had only two weeks to prepare.
During those two weeks, I was basically skipping school just so I could understand how hackathons even worked. I had zero experience with hackathons and almost no programming knowledge. The only thing I really had was some basic UI/UX knowledge, and I had just started learning Figma.
Somehow, by the time the event came, I had convinced myself that maybe…
Just maybe…
I could actually do well.
While sitting in the car on the way there, I just kept murmuring to myself, wondering what I was even going to do once I arrived.
As the Onboarding Session kept going I was busy processing my entrance.
The room was filled with people who had way more experience than me.
Startup founders.
Designers.
Engineers.
People working at different companies.
College students.
And then…
There was me.
Maybe that was the moment my heart sank.
I felt like an imposter hiding under a different name.
Jeremy Brooklin.
At first, it was scary talking to people. I barely saw anyone wearing the yellow event wristbands. Everyone I noticed had blue ones. I was one of the youngest people in the room, and honestly, I didn’t even know what I was doing there.
Networking wasn’t really working because… well… I came alone.
After Anna Spisak and Tallulah Le Merle finished the onboarding, it was finally time for groupings. There were different problem tracks like education, finance, and community.
I chose finance.
We started introducing ourselves, and I met students from different parts of the country. They were all amazing, but I knew I had to be bold enough to actually find a team.
Eventually, I did.
They were mostly college students, and I’m still grateful they decided to adopt me into their team.
The only things I could really offer were a good pitch, a motion graphic video, and a non-working UI made in Figma.
There was Kuya Gab, a software engineer.
Jet, a student from UPLB.
Jericho, who shifted from electronics engineering to software engineering.
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Kuya Brian, a software engineer.
They guided me through the entire experience.
Looking back, I probably looked like a lost dog walking around the venue. 😭
People were fascinated that I was still so young.
One person, Phoebe, looked at me and said,
“You’re so brave, like you’re so brave.. I wish I could do that”
To this day, I still don’t know if that was a compliment or what
I also got to meet incredible speakers like Nana Luz, Kenji Kato, Benjamin, and Simone Seol.
Honestly…
It was probably the first time I had ever met people who had studied at places like Stanford, Harvard, MIT or whatever place they could possibly end up being.
I couldn’t help but fanboy among them.
After 3 days of sleepless nights
Our team ended up creating an all-in-one service app called KITA. It was originally supposed to be called Denki (which was my suggestion), but everyone else on the team had way more experience than I did, so I mostly listened and agreed. Its an app where you ask Ai your problem and KITA will book you the nearest person to fix that problem. Think of a plumber, your toilet seat is broken, and you write your problem in the chatbox, KITA will book a plumber near you.
AND IT WAS AWESOME
I’ll never forget when people from Developer Camp admired my pitch.
We didn’t win.
But strangely…
I didn’t really care.
I enjoyed every second of being there.
I met students from different backgrounds.
Volunteers.
Professionals.
I even walked away with a business card from Aling Patring’s (A food stand that I totally adored)
That weekend gave me something much bigger than a trophy.
It gave me proof that I could belong in rooms I once thought were only meant for other people.
After hearing so many stories from everyone there, I spent a long time wondering why I felt like I didn’t deserve to be in an environment like that.
Maybe because we weren’t wealthy.
Maybe because I didn’t come from the same opportunities as everyone else.
Maybe because I spent so much time believing that people like me weren’t supposed to be there.
But then I realized…
There were other people chasing a better life too.
People with different stories.
Different backgrounds.
Different struggles.
Maybe I wasn’t as alone as I thought.
Now, whenever I’m lying in bed, probably doomscrolling, I sometimes imagine myself in another room full of people chasing something greater than themselves.
And instead of wondering whether I belong…
I think about Developer Camp Manila.
Because now I know I’ve done it before.
To the person reading this…
I didn’t become successful overnight.
I didn’t win.
I didn’t build something that somehow changed the world.
But I did try.
And sometimes, trying is enough to change the way you see yourself.
Because from my experience…
Good things happen when you try.
