DOST-TAPI recognizes winners of 2025 Gawad Alunig x Dalumat

The Department of Science and Technology Application and Promotion Institute (DOST-TAPI) presented awards to the winners of the 2025 Gawad Alunig x Dalumat (GAxD) during the 39th TAPI anniversary celebration at the Manila Hotel on Friday.

For 2025, the GAxD placed significant focus on storytelling through creative advertising, with Gawad Alunig handling audio-visual entries and Gawad Dalumat handling photo essay features.

“Most of the innovators are of the younger generation and grassroots, and we want to get their interest by dwelling on a creative way of communicating and informing them about the programs and services of DOST-TAPI,” said DOST-TAPI Technology Information and Promotion Division chief Mark Anthony Bigayan.

This year’s winners are as follows:

GAWAD DALUMAT (Photo Essay Feature)

• Grand winner: “I-POT: The Roots of Tomorrow” by Team Bihasaya from Cebu
• 1st runner-up: “Patak na Pinaglalaban” by Team Patak from Pangasinan
• 2nd runner-up: “Not All Heroes Wear Capes, Some Put Out Fires Before They Begin” by Tea, InnovAksyon from Cebu
• People’s Choice Award: “Patak na Pinaglalaban” by Team Patak from Pangasinan
• Best Innovation Story: “Power in Every Hatch: A Hybrid Egg Incubator Built for Poultry Farmers” by Team JVC Hope Tech from South Cotabato, “Bee-Yond the Hive: An Instrument That Thrives” by Team NEUST-The Blaze from Nueva Ecija

GAWAD ALUNIG

• Grand winner: “Taghoy” by Creative Blocks from Davao City
• 1st runner-up: “Nuez Naturals” by Stem Uno Productions from Lanao del Norte
• Honorable mentions: “Dropwise: Where clean water has no social status” by Team PATAK from Pangasinan, “Parahag-ot” by Team Catsu from Catanduanes, and “Project Abiso” by KATIG Productions from Bukidnon
• People’s Choice Award: “Dropwise: Where clean water has no social status” by Team PATAK from Pangasinan.

The winners were presented with cash prizes—P75,000 for the Gawad Alunig grand prize and P60,000 for the Gawad Dalumat grand prize—and medals.

Other winners were also given cash prizes and medals for their achievements.

“Gawad Alunig and Gawad Dalumat is a form of our strategy, how to get the interest of the inventors, but this way, the twist is more on inviting marketing,” said Bigayan.

“With that kind of effort, they are promoting the local or community inventors and inventions down the community,” he added.

The GAxD awards began in 2022 as a national campaign that aims to highlight how storytelling can promote homegrown technologies and combat disinformation.

Former installments highlighted citizen journalism, innovations, public relations and marketing, and technologies focused on tech-trans, small businesses, and medium-sized enterprises. — VBL, GMA Integrated News