Enterprise
Marvin Agustin shares secrets to business survival during the pandemic
The digital entrepreneur highlights the value of listening to people and health investments
“Healthcare is expensive.”
A one-liner quote from Captain Raymond Holt from the comically epic Brooklyn Nine-Nine, which struck a chord to Gina Linetti as she decides to part with the precinct in season six.
In this era, healthcare is indeed expensive — passing off as an indispensable investment. For serial entrepreneurs, healthcare plans seemed like an extra expense. That’s what celebrity chef and digital entrepreneur Marvin Agustin thought of, like any other entrepreneur. Especially when your business doesn’t make enough profit during the pandemic.
But a dawning realization struck Agustin similar to how Gina Linetti had a light bulb moment the instance she realized that healthcare is indeed expensive. Agustin knows that well.
Having to follow safety protocols and being overly cautious about the threat of COVID are points that gave him an idea to provide healthcare plans to all his employees.
A people-first mindset
“We won’t be able to operate if people, your employees, and your staff would get sick, and also not safe for the customers,” said the celebrity chef.
People. Employees. Marvin Agustin understands that businesses won’t thrive without their people. Despite being an “extra cost,” health plans were a surefire investment to keep his people safe, functional, and happy. In the end, the cost won’t be as high as compared to when your employees get hospitalized.
What bugs entrepreneurs are the availability of quality healthcare at a reasonable price. Agustin had believed that only big companies get to provide health plans, not until he chanced upon Maxicare. Surprisingly, the celebrity chef found a credible company offering affordable and convenient health plans for both him and his employees.
Not all quality healthcare is unreachable as many people perceived
Maxicare’s reputation has put off Agustin like many other entrepreneurs. The company seemed expensive and an extra expense — being 33 years in the business with over 1.6 million members, and widely accepted over 1,000 hospitals and clinics around the country.
But Maxicare has an array of healthcare plans, particularly tailored to small-to-medium enterprises. There are plans that are a lot less than PhP 21,000 — which is the average of healthcare expenses that SMEs spend on employees per year — and even as low as PhP 4,600 to PhP 6,000 per employee per year.
The computation can wrack a nerve as your expenses pile up which pushed most enterprises to shy away from healthcare plans. But in return, employees don’t get access to quality healthcare and businesses don’t get protection from unplanned expenses caused by unforeseen circumstances — diseases, pandemics, accidents, and so on.
The best investment for a growing business
Marvin Agustin understood this well: healthcare plans are an investment for employees and the business itself. The digital entrepreneur realized that when his employees are in tiptop shape, his businesses are more profitable.
Jennifer Haw, Operations Manager of Yummyverse Group and one of Agustin’s employees, revealed how relieved and happy she feels knowing she’s taken care of. She has highlighted the importance of having peace of mind brought by Maxicare through their affordable plans.
“We won’t be able to operate if people, your employees, and your staff would get sick.”
Haw advises not to be frugal to people since they’re the foundation of businesses. Haw even applauded Agustin, touting the healthcare plans as the celebrity chef’s best investment for his business so far.
And it has been paying off, especially in this pandemic where the food business has been disrupted and has taken on too many challenges that the industry is still trying to overcome. From the threat of contracting the virus in numerous transactions to the struggles of making a profit, to taking a toll on our mental health.
Surviving entrepreneurship
Despite the struggles Agustin has faced, he was glowing with optimism; seemingly ready to brave the future and whatever it holds. At least during the roundtable. I was giddy looking at his ostensibly never-aging face until a question sparked in my head: What would be his advice to entrepreneurs struggling in this pandemic, too?
Agustin brazenly responded to my question, hinting about the uncertainty of the future. “We don’t know what works. What we thought are our advantages? We’re all back to square one.”
“What is important now is we listen to the new challenges, to the people that we work with, to our audience — old and new. So that we will be able to navigate this pandemic and get out of it alive,” he added.
The celebrity chef highlighted the importance of patience and even asked people to meet him at the finish line, encouraging people to be strong so everyone can attain their goals.
He further added, “We have to listen. This is the perfect time to step back and really figure out anong importante sa inyo.” (We have to listen. This is the perfect time to step back and really figure out what’s important to you.)
Finding the right plan
Maxicare offers a variety of healthcare plans. There’s Maxicare Plus, a comprehensive HMO program for small businesses with 10-99 employees. For micro-businesses, there’s a Maxicare Starter Plan apt for 3-9 employees.
For a different kind of premium, Maxicare BusinessEssential is Maxicare SME’s most affordable offer. The plan has options to have an Outpatient Care Program or an Outpatient Care + Confinement Care HMO program for companies with 3-99 employees.
Maxicare understands that businesses are wary of its piling expenses, which is why they put it into consideration when they offered affordable premiums.
Micro-businesses can get a plan for as low as PhP 4,651 per employee per year. Meanwhile, small businesses can go as low as PhP 6,260 if they have 10-19 employees or PhP 5,301 for those with 20-99 employees.
Enterprise
Chimelong’s newest attraction might be the robots themselves
The future of travel is here, and it knows tai chi!
Imagine checking into a theme park and greeting a humanoid robot. A few hours later, you watch one perform tai chi. Another challenges you to table tennis. Yet another helps you navigate to the next attraction. By nightfall at your hotel, robots enhance the experience again.
This vision drives the latest collaboration between AGIBOT and Chimelong Group. Together, they brought over 300 robots to Chimelong Spaceship Park in Zhuhai, China.
This launch represents a massive real-world application of embodied AI in tourism. AGIBOT and Chimelong integrated these robots across entertainment, education, visitor services, retail, and hospitality. They act as active participants rather than remaining confined to a single demonstration area.
The timing celebrates a notable milestone, too. During the launch, Chimelong received the 20,000th robot to roll off AGIBOT’s production line.
Your next theme park companion could be a robot
At Chimelong Spaceship Park, robots act as part of the total visitor experience. Guests don’t just stop to watch them from afar.
Some take on entertainment roles by performing martial arts, gymnastics, and tai chi. Others interact directly with guests through table tennis and hands-on manipulation challenges.
Designers also created robots for the quieter moments of a park day. They answer questions, introduce exhibits, and guide visitors through designated areas.
In retail settings, robots assist shoppers with their purchases. Meanwhile, hotel deployments place them in guest-facing roles to welcome visitors and hold multi-turn conversations.
Consequently, your trip involves encountering robots in several different contexts. The journey stretches seamlessly from your park arrival to your hotel return.
When the robots become part of the show
Theatrical applications are perhaps the easiest to picture. AGIBOT and Chimelong incorporate robots into live performances alongside human actors, music, and lighting.
Rather than treating a humanoid robot as a mere technological curiosity onstage, creators coordinate multiple robots into fluid routines.
Elsewhere, visitors engage with robots through games and educational activities. This creates a highly interactive, hands-on introduction to embodied AI.
Theme parks offer a perfectly fitting setting for this technology. Parks historically excel at making technology disappear into the magic. Engineers design animatronics, immersive environments, special effects, and automated rides to serve the story.
Humanoid robots push this idea into new territory. They communicate, navigate physical spaces, respond to people, and adapt to different settings with ease.
A robot-filled day does not stop at the park gates
The collaboration naturally extends into Chimelong’s hospitality operations.
Robots welcome hotel guests, hold complex conversations, and offer highly personalized interactions. This introduces an interesting possibility for resorts. Technology can now follow visitors beyond the main attraction and enhance the broader destination.
Travelers will soon experience trips where the boundaries between attraction, service, and technology blur entirely.
A robot might serve as your tour guide. Next, you could watch a robotic entertainment performance. Finally, a mechanical host could wait downstairs in your hotel lobby.
Potentially, the robot you meet in one area connects directly to the wider system operating backstage.
Making hundreds of robots work together
Deploying over 300 robots into a busy tourism destination requires massive coordination.
AGIBOT, Chimelong, and China Mobile established a dedicated 5G network. This ensures stable connectivity across high-traffic areas. The team uses centralized coordination to manage robots moving through various park and hotel environments.
Comprehensive operational systems also handle network security, privacy protection, charging, and fire safety.
Guests easily overlook this infrastructure while watching a robot perform tai chi. Yet, this backend framework remains one of the most fascinating aspects of the project. A theme park represents a highly complicated environment. Thousands of people constantly move through spaces shifting rapidly from one experience to another.
Making robots useful here means teaching them to embody the destination itself.
The beginning of a bigger experiment
AGIBOT and Chimelong are establishing a joint research institute for embodied AI in tourism.
This institute will explore new applications, operating models, and technologies. Researchers will draw directly from the experience of this massive deployment. The first project phase lays the groundwork to expand robot usage across all Chimelong properties.
For now, the appeal remains fairly simple. Creators build theme parks on the promise of making ordinary life feel extraordinary.
Chimelong bets that humanoid robots will increasingly spark that exact magic.
Enterprise
AGIBOT just topped the medal table at the World Humanoid Robot Games
The robots that did it are already clocking in at real factories.
AGIBOT entered its first World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing on August 26 and walked away with a dominant victory.
The company claimed 18 gold, 16 silver, and 12 bronze medals, securing 46 total podium finishes and topping both the gold and overall medal standings.
Designed to stress-test humanoid machines in sports, fine manipulation, and real-world duties, the Games evaluated robots across events ranging from martial arts to hotel service and emergency response.
AGIBOT swept through these categories, earning top spots in motion control, obstacle racing, and daily practical tasks.
The true triumph lies in what remained unchanged on competition day. AGIBOT fielded its standard production lineup, including the OmniHand, G2, A3, and X2.
None of these units were custom-built to win medals, as every machine came straight from active commercial deployments.
Precision and agility straight off the assembly line
The OmniHand reached the finals in all eight dexterous manipulation events and brought home seven gold medals.
It aced delicate challenges like Block Building, Powder Weighing, and Bean Picking with Tweezers, proving that fine motor control matters just as much as raw power.
In motion control, the AGIBOT X2 captured gold in the 100m obstacle race while adding silver and bronze in the 400m sprint.
Meanwhile, the AGIBOT A3 secured gold in Tai Chi. The X2 competed in its standard commercial configuration without any hardware modifications.
Powering the X2 is AGIBOT’s proprietary AGILE framework, short for AgiBot Generative Intelligent Locomotion Engine.
This system blends real-time environmental perception with autonomous decision-making to navigate sudden obstacles and changing terrain.
By combining precise parameter identification with seamless simulation-to-reality transfer, the framework maintains rock-solid stability when transitioning from code to physical ground.
Proven intelligence on actual factory floors
AGIBOT earned five golds in real-world scenarios, dominating tasks across library operations, hotel services, and emergency response.
The G2 robot behind these wins is the exact same model currently operating on factory floors for manufacturers like Longcheer and SAIC.
Its operational intelligence stems from AGIBOT’s ViLLA embodied foundation model GO, the world model GE, and its RW-RL system. These combined technologies sharpen perception and planning inside unpredictable work environments.
While the 46-medal tally commands headlines, the deeper story is that mass-produced robots won without special modifications.
AGIBOT proves that general-purpose intelligence paired with commercial hardware can adapt across varied scenarios. Embodied AI is finally stepping out of isolated lab demos and into consistent, repeatable work where it matters most.
Enterprise
Cebu Pacific becomes 1st SEA low-cost carrier with Starlink Wi-Fi
Rollout expected to begin in 2027
Cebu Pacific has introduced Starlink, making it the first low-cost airline in Southeast Asia to bring Wi-Fi in the sky for passengers.
The rollout is expected to begin in 2027. Starlink delivers an unparalleled broadband experience inflight, with high-speed, low-latency Wi-Fi capable of HD streaming, online gaming, productivity and more.
Beyond enhancing the passenger experience, Starlink will also support improved operational connectivity for Cebu Pacific’s flight crews and operational teams. This enables better operational efficiency.
The collaboration is a significant milestone for Philippine aviation. The rollout forms part of Cebu Pacific’s continued investment in customer experience and digital innovation.
As part of the partnership, Cebu Pacific and Indigo Partners portfolio airlines, Wizz Air, and JetSMART expect to install Starlink on over 1,000 aircraft.
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