Welcoming a new child into the world is both exciting and challenging for parents. Early childhood, after all, is the most crucial formative stage in a child’s growth.
From the moment an infant is born until a child reaches five, the human brain rapidly develops more than any other time in life. Every interaction builds the physical, cognitive, and socio-emotional abilities that form the critical foundations for language, health, motor skills, learning, and behavior.
Parents eagerly await their babies’ first steps and first words like “mama” or “papa.” These moments — developmental milestones — are checkpoints that ensure a child is progressing and learning expected physical and behavioral skills at certain age ranges. While children develop these skills at their own pace, some children may take longer than others.
Delays understandably cause anxiety and distress, especially for first-time parents. Though most delays are not permanent and can be effectively addressed with interventions such as therapy, significant delays may signal underlying conditions that can affect a child’s growth and development in the long term if left undetected.
As parents juggle multiple responsibilities, how can they ensure that they are properly monitoring their children’s growth? How can they seek medical consultations if they detect a possible delay in their child’s development?
Agap.ai, an AI-powered app developed by innovators from the UPSCALE Innovation Hub, seeks to aid parents in tracking their children’s developmental milestones and to help them in the early detection of developmental delays.
Collaboration builds innovation
The innovation that drove the development of Agap.ai came from a collaboration of various fields of expertise.
Biologist Reynand Jay Canoy, data scientist Maria Cristina Zapanta, psychometrician Patricia Parungao, and software developer John Romeo Alvarez were classmates in the Asian Institute of Management’s Master of Innovation and Business program when they first came up with the idea for Agap.ai, which they presented as a classroom project in 2023.
“At that time, [the app] was specifically conceptualized as an autism detection tool powered by AI,” said Canoy, who now heads Agap.ai as its chief executive officer. He finished both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Biology from the University of the Philippines Diliman, where he also currently teaches as a senior lecturer.
While the group had the option to pursue the project either as a capstone project or as a thesis, they decided to continue developing it as a startup after finishing their program in AIM last year. By then, Agap.ai had turned from a tool to specifically detect autism into a general developmental milestone monitoring app.
“What we want to actually do with the app is to at least help parents monitor the developmental milestones of their kids,” Zapanta highlighted. Currently Agap.ai’s chief operating officer, she likewise finished her bachelor’s degree in Statistics from UP Diliman.
Faced with the challenge of further developing the app, the group invited Dr. Ebner Bon Maceda and Dr. Ma-Am Joy Tumulak to join the Agap.ai team as chief medical officer and chief health development officer, respectively.
“The problem being solved by this app is very important, parallel to newborn screening, because we are screening babies for metabolic conditions,” explained Maceda, a pediatrician.
Both Maceda and Tumulak, who is also a genetic counselor, work with the Newborn Screening Reference Center of the UP Manila National Institutes of Health: “That became our reason to join the group.”
From classroom project to award-winning startup
As Agap.ai was established as a startup, the founders also began joining various competitions — and the app’s innovative vision immediately garnered both attention and recognition.
The app became one of the 10 national finalists in the 2025 Presidential Filipinnovation Awards of the Department of Economy, Planning, and Development. That same year, the team represented the Philippines in the Bangkok Business Challenge, Asia’s longest-running global student startup competition.
They also pitched the project to UP’s University Innovation Fellowship and joined the UPSCALE Innovation Hub, UP’s premier technology business incubator in partnership with the Department of Science and Technology. This is where they were able to access networking opportunities and mentorship from several industry leaders on how to develop a business.
“As a medical person who doesn’t know anything about business, it was very new information, and it was very helpful. You can really see how a business should start, and the steps needed to ensure that the business succeeds,” Tumulak shared.
With opportunities afforded by being part of the UPSCALE Innovation Hub, the team was able to prepare for Startup QC. Agap.ai received a one million-peso equity-free grant from the Quezon City government alongside six other innovative startups.
“In a way, [these awards] validate what we are doing right now,” Canoy said. “Someone out there, someone of authority recognizes our efforts.”
Despite their own doubts and hesitations, Zapanta expressed that the recognition of Agap.ai brings validation and moral support, which encourages their team to further develop the project: “You can really see they’re pushing you. That this is something worthy to pursue.”
AI-powered, human-centered
Agap.ai may be AI-powered, but its heart beats with a desire to help future generations — bridging the gap between parents and medical professionals to ensure children’s welfare and development, especially with the limited number of specialists in the country.
Alvarez, who is now Agap.ai’s chief technology officer, shared that their individual experiences with the autism spectrum within and outside their families drove them to pursue the project. “So, at that time, we saw that there’s a need to detect childhood delays that could have an early intervention through AI.”
Agap.ai recommends activities for parents to try with their children. Through simple video clips or pictures from mobile phones, the app analyzes, processes, and validates a child’s activity. The parents get detailed summaries on whether or not their child has achieved a developmental milestone, and whether there is improvement or a sign of a possible delay. It also connects parents to doctors and therapy centers, especially for those waiting for appointments.
Following their presentations and pitching sessions, Canoy shared that parents would approach the team to express how Agap.ai would be helpful for them: “They would really tell us, ‘we really need this now.’ For those parents whose children are already a little older, they say to me, ‘I hope we had this one’ when their kids were younger.”
“These small people, validating the problem and the solution, it really helps us and energizes us actually to push forward.”
Nevertheless, he emphasized that Agap.ai is not just for those with developmental delays: “What we advocate for is really to monitor them so that parents or caregivers could have a peace of mind and confidence that their child is growing healthy. It’s not just for those with autism. It is for everyone.”
Meet the innovators behind Agap.ai and other emerging technologies in Inoblasyon: The UP Innovation Summit 2026, happening May 5 to 6 at the SMX Convention Center-Aura, Bonifacio Global City Taguig. Be in the loop for the latest updates and register now for the summit by following their Facebook page at facebook.com/Inoblasyon.UPInnovationSummit.
Cover photo by Mar Lopez, UPS-MCO
