YGG Play Summit 2025 expands to empower Filipino digital workforce

In the lead-up to its 2025 edition, the YGG Play Summit has revealed a major expansion of the Skill District, the learning hub within its City of Play experience. Designed by Metaversity, the educational arm of YGG Pilipinas, the district offers an immersive upskilling experience to uncover earning opportunities across Web3 and AI. Visitors can join workshops that teach practical, jobs-oriented skills for the digital economy in content creation, marketing, community management, game development, and more.

The Skill District is one of four themed zones in the City of Play alongside the Player District, Degen District, and The Arena. Three new experiences have been added: The Prompt to Prototype vibe coding workshop will teach aspiring builders how to create games using AI. The Metaversity Interactive forum will gather stakeholders across industry, government, and academe to work with students to address critical skills gaps in the emerging tech workforce.

Finally, Metaverse Filipino Worker (MFW) City — the pioneering builder residency led by YGG Pilipinas and the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) — will unveil the results of its pilot program to educate developers from the MIMAROPA region in the Sui blockchain’s Move programming language.

“This collaboration truly reflects the core of our DICT thrust in Digital Bayanihan, showcasing how industries, communities, and the government can work together to empower talent across all regions of the country,” said DICT MIMAROPA Regional Director Emmy Lou Versoza-Delfin.

Ms. Versoza-Delfin added that these initiatives align with President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr.’s directives to create more jobs for Filipinos and Secretary Henry Aguda’s commitment to generate more digital and digitally enabled employment opportunities. “These efforts bring us closer to a future where Filipinos can build transformative, sustainable, and rewarding careers without having to leave the comfort of their own homes,” she said.

The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025 identifies technology as the dominant force reshaping the global labor market, driving both job creation and displacement. Expanding digital access alone is expected to generate 19 million new roles while rendering nine million obsolete. AI and information processing technology are forecasted to create and displace millions more.

For the Philippines, this underscores the urgent need to develop digital fluency and technical capabilities, so workers can seize opportunities instead of being left behind by automation.

Official school partner STI College — Bonifacio Global City will participate in the Skill District alongside IT, computer science, and esports organizations from more than 10 schools across different regions of the country, including the University of Santo Tomas, National University, Polytechnic University of the Philippines, University of Southeastern Philippines — Davao City, and the Philippine Christian University — Cavite.

Aside from the Skill District events, industry leaders will also take the stage for panels, fireside chats, and keynotes. Speakers include Mench Dizon of YGG Pilipinas, Sylvain Loe Mie of Ubisoft, Luke Barwikowski and Heidi Christine of Pixels, Theo Agranat of Gunzilla Games, TK of Spekter Games, Jihoz of Sky Mavis, Kohji Nagata of Parallel, Roby John of SuperGaming, Hantao of Moku, Alessia Baumgartner of DWF Labs, Shi Khai Wei of LongHash Ventures, Daryl Lim of TRIVE Digital, Oliver Maroney of OpenSea, Wei Zhou of Coins.ph, and Joony Koo of AO Labs.

Summit sponsors this year include game studios Sky Mavis, Aurory, Pixels, Parallel TCG, and Vibes TCG; the Layer-1 blockchain Sui; creative powerhouse Spekter Agency; Web3 investment firm DWF Labs; and Philippine crypto exchange Coins.ph.

Set to run from Nov. 19 to 22, YGG Play Summit will return to SMX Aura, Bonifacio Global City (BGC). Tickets and the full event agenda are available on the YGG Play Summit website at yggplaysummit.com.