Enderun Colleges scored a major win on the national innovation stage after its Technology Management co-curricular organization, ECHROME, clinched the Jury Award in the Freestyle Category of the 4th National/International Robolution: Robotics and Automation Competition held at Don Bosco Technical Institute-Makati.
Their winning project, BabelBot, is a fully student-built multilingual communication robot designed to translate languages in real time – an innovation tailor-made for Enderun’s diverse, multinational community.
Led by Rafael Miguel C. Datoc (4th Year) with team members Maria Catricia Benipayo (2nd Year) and Jhesso Daypuyart (1st Year), and guided by Dr. Lydia King (Vice President for Academics, Chief Information Officer, and Technology Management Department Head) together with Technology Management faculty member and coach Jonathan Yap, the team engineered BabelBot from scratch. Every subsystem-hardware, software, wiring, and its 3D-printed body – was entirely built by the students.
BabelBot integrates speech recognition, translation processing, and interactive dialogue – built not just to impress judges, but to address real communication gaps on campus and beyond. The project resonated with the competition’s theme, “Empowering Innovation: Transforming Ideas into Intelligent Automation,” and earned praise from an international panel of judges from Greece for its clarity of purpose and real-world potential.
“We wanted BabelBot to be practical, accessible, and inclusive,” said team president Datoc. “Innovation matters when it solves real problems, especially in a multilingual country like ours.”
The robot is already being eyed for future deployment in Philippine airports, with potential global replication – an ambitious outcome that highlights Enderun Colleges’ push toward meaningful, impact-driven tech.
For Daypuyart, building BabelBot wasn’t smooth sailing. “One small issue could ruin an entire run,” he said. “But we pushed through with nonstop testing and teamwork. Everyone brought something vital to the table.”
Meanwhile, Benipayo credits Enderun’s Technology Management Program for shaping her confidence and perspective. “Enderun taught me that tech isn’t just engineering, it’s also storytelling, design, and presenting your innovation to the world.”
BabelBot’s victory stands as proof that when Enderun students fuse creativity, engineering excellence, and purpose, they don’t just build projects – they set new standards for innovation.
