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Going digital has long been seen as the new way of living for societies worldwide, including developing nations such as the Philippines.

The pandemic, however, only hastened this reality as life as we knew it suddenly took a total turnaround.

And while our routine may eventually return to normal soon, the verdict is out: our digital lifestyle is here to stay.

This is the central theme of this year's DigiCon Pop presented by the Internet and Mobile Marketing Association of the Philippines (IMMAP) which will run from October 11 to 15.

“Digital is the new masa,” commented Leigh Reyes, board president of IMMAP.

“From village Viber groups, to live selling, from learning how to navigate by QR code, to Zoom e-numans and Zoomba, digital has made a full shift to the mainstream.”

Big named guests and speakers

Helping to drive this point home are the invited speakers made up of industry heavyweights like Adam Grant, best-selling author of Think Again; Rory Sutherland, vice chairman of Ogilvy UK, author of The Wiki Man and Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense; Scott Galloway, who's dubbed as “One of the World's 50 Best Business Professors”, founder of Prophet and L2 Inc., and host of the award-winning podcast, Pivot; Laurent Ezekiel, chief marketing officer and growth officer for WPP; and Gill Zhou, APAC and China chief marketing officer for IBM.

The five-day virtual event will cover various agendas - Disruption, Expansion, Emerging, Possibilities - to be attended by over 50 keynote speakers from all over the world.

The invited speakers for the mentioned frameworks are Michael Patent, founder of sports and entertainment agency, Culture Group; Todd Schweizer, co-founder and CEO of the independent financial platform, Brankas; Nicholas Kontopolous, APAC regional head of Growth Marketing for Adobe DX; Bea Atienza, IBE leader for Colgate-Palmolive; and Isabel Yap, special projects officer and senior assistant vice president for East West Banking Co.

Also sharing their insights are Ash Mandhyan, CEO of Quanta Digital, Carlos Alimurung, CEO of ONE Esports; Budjette Tan, writer and co-creator of hit comic series, Trese; and Grace David, CEO of Edukasyon.PH.

Comeback

Making its much-anticipated return this year is DPop Youth, a one-day workshop and competition designed for university students to learn, socialize, and show their talents in the digital industry.

Gracing the event is none other than social media star, and DigiCon's “baddest” speaker yet, Bretman Rock, who has over 43 million followers and a trailblazer in the LGBTQIA+ and Asian-American communities.

Another returning highlight is the Boomerang Awards recognizing excellence in the digital marketing space.

For more information about DigiCon Pop 2021, visit www.digicon.com.ph.

For more lifestyle content, head out to GMA's Lifestyle page.

One of the invited speakers in this year's DigiCon Pop is writer Budjette Tan, whose comic book series Trese made a lot of noise recently after it was made into an anime series by the streaming platform, Netflix. Read here to find out how Trese captivated the fancy of the public following its TV release.

Meanwhile, here's a list of things that wen virtual in 2020: