Papua New Guinea Travel Vlog: Visiting the Most Exotic Country of the World

Last May, I had the chance to visit the exotic country of Papua New Guinea to represent the Philippines in the APEC App Challenge, a software development competition that is one of the many pre-events of APEC 2018.

This trip would easily qualify as one for the books. First, I and Mark were privileged to be chosen to join this competition. Second, meeting some of the best software developers from other countries in the Asia-Pacific and becoming friends with them is just amazing. Third, I am beyond grateful that Papua New Guinea is the host of APEC this year.

As a travel writer myself, I'm probably not gonna be able to think about traveling to PNG for leisure on my own discretion. But it's so refreshing to experience the country in a different perspective, and as an APEC delegate at that.

During the hackathon, I and Mark developed an e-commerce platform with an image recognition technology. Other countries worked around VR, AR, blockchain, indexing system, and SMS tech. When everyone could just win the competition, it wqs trimmed down to whose technology best answers the pain points of the target market - the bilum mamas or weavers of Papua's famous handicraft bags. 💼

While we did not win the competition, we won new learnings, memories as well as new friends to keep and treasure. Congrats to PNG, Australia and Vietnam! 👏

It's a totally great experience and we're grateful to The Asia Foundation for this entire experience. 🙌

#APEC2018 #APECAppChallenge

P.S.

FUN FACT: New Guinea is the world's second-largest island, after Greenland 🗾🌏

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