The city I want to help build
When I imagine a smart city, I begin with the people living in it.
I think about a parent who needs to reach the guardhouse. A senior citizen who needs help ordering basic necessities. A small merchant hoping to serve more customers nearby. A delivery worker who knows the neighborhood but needs a clearer way to coordinate with it.
A city becomes smarter when these everyday situations become easier to handle—and when the benefits reach people who are often left outside the newest technology.
That is the direction I want to pursue through SHOMON AUTOMATIONS: wireless and smart solutions that strengthen the connections between residents, local businesses, and their communities.
Our intended first deployment area is Lapu-Lapu City, Cebu. We will begin with a small pilot, learn from real use, and earn the confidence to expand.
What the pandemic taught us about being nearby
The COVID-19 pandemic changed how we understood distance. A shop could be close to home, yet reaching its products could be difficult. A neighbor could live a few streets away, yet finding out who needed help required information and coordination.
It made me think more deeply about the systems around a household. How do residents receive trusted updates? How do families arrange essential purchases? How do small businesses remain reachable when normal routines are interrupted?
The next disruption may look different. It could involve severe weather, an internet outage, transport difficulties, or the daily strain of rising living costs. An aging population and unequal access to digital tools also deserve attention.
Technology cannot remove these problems on its own. But a useful local communication system can help people coordinate their response.
Communities should build their connections while there is time to practice using them.
A local network with a local purpose
Imagine a wireless network designed around the needs of a neighborhood, gradually connected to other neighborhoods across the city.
Its purpose would be practical: short messages, community announcements, requests for assistance, and small exchanges of information that help essential services work.
This is what I mean by a hyperlocal wireless network. Its value comes from how well it serves the people and places nearby.
A citywide mesh is our longer-term ambition. Where the design supports multiple usable routes, participating nodes could relay messages through the network. That ambition requires careful testing of coverage, capacity, power, equipment placement, and the people responsible for keeping it working.
A small network that residents trust is a strong beginning.
LoRa and a network of the people
One technology we are exploring is LoRa, a radio technology suited to sending small amounts of information with low power consumption over useful distances.
LoRa can support local radio links without requiring a mobile-data subscription for each participating radio. Suitable networking software, including the Reticulum approach we are exploring, can help connect independent devices into a wider network.
LoRa supplies the radio link. Software and network design determine how messages are routed; a LoRa radio alone does not automatically create a decentralized mesh.
My aspiration is a network of the people—one that residents and local partners can help support, with transparent rules and responsibilities distributed across participating communities.
I want basic local communication to become as accessible as possible, including the possibility of messages without per-message mobile-data charges. But free communication must not disguise the real costs of equipment, installation, electricity, and maintenance. We must find a fair way to sustain those costs.
A shared network also needs shared care. Residents should understand who can send official announcements, what information is collected, and whom to contact when something fails. Decentralization should come with clear accountability.
LoRa is suited to compact messages rather than video or rich web browsing. Ordinary phones need a compatible gateway or terminal to access such radio links. Our broader design can combine different connections, giving each technology work it can realistically carry.
Turning connectivity into everyday value
HomeSafe and GuardLink are part of our development direction for connecting households and guardhouses. The goal is a simpler way for residents to send requests with enough context for the receiving person to understand where they came from.
Reliability also depends on people: who is on duty, who acknowledges a request, and what happens next.
ShoGO represents another part of the vision: a hyperlocal platform connecting households with nearby merchants and delivery services.
I imagine families accessing meals, groceries, and everyday essentials through a service that understands their neighborhood. I also want to explore access for residents without smartphones, through practical terminals or assisted ordering.
In a future local-network version, menus could be cached on a device while compact order requests and acknowledgements travel over suitable available links. LoRa could carry a small order code or status message where testing shows that it works. Richer browsing would use higher-capacity connections.
A transmitted order is not yet an accepted order. A merchant must confirm it, stock must be available, and someone must complete the delivery. Those details are part of the service we need to build.
The goal is to make local commerce more accessible while creating opportunity for merchants, delivery workers, builders, and residents.
The hardest connection is between people
Personally, I believe I can contribute to my country's growth by helping create useful local enterprises and, eventually, attracting responsible foreign investment.
I want that investment to strengthen Filipino capability: practical skills, worthwhile jobs, stronger local businesses, and infrastructure residents can use.
But before I can invite others to believe in that vision, I must help unite people around a purpose they can see and trust. I believe that will be the hardest part of this endeavor.
People have different priorities. Some have seen ambitious projects disappear after the first announcement. Others reasonably want to know who benefits, who pays, and who will still answer when the equipment stops working.
Those questions deserve clear answers.
For me, unity means creating enough shared confidence to try something useful together, examine the results honestly, and improve what is not working.
Trust will come from keeping small promises: listening before installing, explaining costs clearly, protecting private information, responding to faults, and publishing what we learn.
Beginning small, with a purpose worth sharing
Our vision is a future where neighborhoods can communicate, coordinate essential needs, and participate more fully in local opportunity.
Our mission is to develop practical wireless and smart solutions with communities, beginning in Lapu-Lapu City, and expand through measured reliability, useful services, and earned trust.
The first steps should be modest: a few participating households, a clearly defined use case, and evidence that the service helps. Citywide deployment is a goal to work toward, not something we are claiming to have achieved.
This journal will document the journey—the ideas, prototypes, limitations, lessons, and people who shape it.
If you live in Lapu-Lapu City, consider one question: what everyday problem would become easier if your neighborhood had a dependable way to coordinate?
That is a good place for us to begin.
The first connection we need to build is trust.
Explore our vision →