In this new What if Instead? conversation, Professor Ari Luis Halos is joined by his former student Charnylle T. Antiporda, now founder of Juan Lift.
Guests:
Ari Luis Halos, Assistant Professor, University of the Philippines Open University
On LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/ari-luis-halos-897b2113/
Charnylle T. Antiporda, Founder of Juan Lift
Hosts:
Alejandro Juárez Crawford
On ITSPmagazine 👉 https://www.itspmagazine.com/itspmagazine-podcast-radio-hosts/alejandro-juarez-crawford
Miriam Plavin-Masterman
On ITSPmagazine 👉 https://www.itspmagazine.com/itspmagazine-podcast-radio-hosts/miriam-plavin-masterman
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Episode Introduction
In this new What if Instead? conversation, Professor Ari Luis Halos is joined by his former student Charnylle T. Antiporda, now founder of Juan Lift. Ari and Nylle explore the transformative power of connecting diverse talents to create meaningful opportunities for people with disabilities (PWDs). They highlight Juan Lift’s mission to empower PWDs by offering remote work opportunities, emphasizing the importance of bridging the gap between those with valuable skillsets and those in need of their expertise.
Join us for an insightful conversation on how we can foster more connections and unlock hidden potential for individuals with often-overlooked abilities.
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Resources
Juan Lift - Rebel Base: https://app.rebelbase.co/project/3993
Hope Across Borders: https://hopeacrossborders.org/
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Episode Sponsors
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For more podcast stories from What If Instead? Podcast with Alejandro Juárez Crawford and Miriam Plavin-Masterman, visit: https://www.itspmagazine.com/itspmagazine-podcast-radio-hosts/alejandro-juarez-crawford and https://www.itspmagazine.com/itspmagazine-podcast-radio-hosts/miriam-plavin-masterman
We Have The Skills, We Need The Connection | A Conversation with Ari Luis Halos & Charnylle T. Antiporda | What If Instead? Podcast with Alejandro Juárez Crawford and Miriam Plavin-Masterman
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (00:00)
I know that for some of us taking wild combinations of foods from different traditional times of day, distinct cultures, various high and low cuisine styles, for some of us, this is incredibly liberating. And just to show my cards, I'll reveal that I think the crazy food combinations should always be tried with a few limits.
Ari Halos (00:17)
.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (00:28)
But then for some of us, it's anxiety producing. Don't serve me this breakfast food in the middle of the day with this food from a totally different cuisine. Which is it for you all? What about you, Ari? Food combinations? And what's a crazy one that you actually like versus one that you're like, nah.
Ari Halos (00:46)
Okay, yeah,
like here in the Philippines, we're this is this isn't weird for us but like it's probably weird for other cultures like we have this
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (00:56)
This is good. One person's weird is another person's delicious, right?
Ari Halos (01:00)
Yeah, so like
here we have the sweet spaghetti. So like Italians would really, I don't know, but like, yeah, we have sweet spaghetti and we pair that with fried chicken.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (01:16)
Mm, how do you make sweet spaghetti? What is sweet spaghetti consist of?
Ari Halos (01:19)
So, there
was a time during World War II, we ran out of tomatoes. And then there was this food scientist who made ketchup from bananas. And she used, I'm not sure if you're familiar with achuete. It's something we brought in from Mexico, I guess. It gives a red dye to any food. And she mixed that with bananas, and she made banana ketchup.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (01:34)
Mmm.
Ari Halos (01:49)
And then because by that time Americans introduced us to spaghetti already We made spaghetti using that but it turned out that the the bananas ketchup was so sweet. So we got used to spaghetti mixed with hot dogs, frankfurters, we chopped them up
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (01:50)
Mmm.
Mm-hmm.
This sounds amazing. mean, look, anything's better than corn syrup, if you ask me, right, which is itself just a consequence of U.S. Department of Agriculture policy, making it incredibly cheap to produce corn, which is the key sweetener in Heinz tomato ketchup, which is not a sponsor of this episode. But of course, what you're talking about is fascinating because tomatoes themselves, there were no tomatoes in Italy.
They came until they came from the Americas. And in fact, I remember being in the Kimchi Museum in Seoul and learning about where the red spices came from. Also, the Americas, I think, in that case, via Spain. So this all gets crazy. What about you, Neil? Is there a is there a mixture of crazy things that some people in the world, some benighted, ignorant people in the world who might not know?
about banana based sweet, sweet spaghetti who might not have their heads around.
Charnylle Antiporda (03:17)
Yeah, so I also have a weird food combination which is like putting mang tomas or like which is not sponsored by the way. It's a liver gravy sauce and that is combined on corned beef and like since Prof. Ari also mentioned the sweet spaghetti since we are Filipino, we love rice. Sometimes we also put it on the rice with the spaghetti.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (03:46)
Mmm. I feel like we need to make this, you know, a food podcast and we'll suddenly bring these things out and we'll have recipes and food sponsors.
Mim Plavin-Masterman (03:57)
I feel like we should put
recipes in the show notes for these, for these feces. I'm serious. I'm serious for this. So Alejandro, what's your favorite food combination? What's the one or super surprising food combination that you really like?
Ari Halos (03:58)
You
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (04:00)
Yeah, seriously, actually, we need to for these.
I actually think the best meals come when your fridge is lean and you need to combine things you wouldn't otherwise combine. And I was living in a neighborhood in New York City called Washington Heights with a guy, a tumba player from Vancouver called Miles Bigelow. And hello, Miles, if you're hearing this, Miles and I had maybe four things in the house. It was not a well-starred larder.
I think if I'm remembering right, was corn tortillas, because I always kept packs of 36 in the freezer. I could have nothing else, but I'd be living off corn tortillas. That's been my whole life. I got the Germans into it and the Spaniards. I had everybody into tortillas. You got to watch out. You got to watch out with me and tortillas. then we had chocolate bars and some kind of cheese and nuts.
We just took them all and hot sauce and we created these incredible sort of chocolate quesadillas on a skillet. And Miles and I were convinced we'd invented the best food ever. We used to try it on guests. They'd come over and you know, one of us would be trying to impress someone that we liked and no one was interested in even trying this. But
To this day, I don't think I've described it exactly right. You can't, you have to taste it, but it was just incredible. And of course, I'm Mexican American and you know, only we, the people that I come from could have invented mole sauce, which is basically chocolate, spicy chocolate sauce in a savory food. mean, does it get any better?
Mim Plavin-Masterman (05:56)
sounds really good. I think you need show notes now for your concoction, whatever it's called, with the recipe, if you remember it. Yeah.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (06:00)
It's right, it's
It's so true. It's so true. Of course, there are times when the crazy food combination doesn't work out as brilliantly as the ones that we've tried, which we know now are going to become very popular because of this conversation. And those, you know what, those are part of the process, right? It doesn't come out quite wrong. You know, you're
You've just combined, you've put kimchi on homemade sarma, which is rolled grape leaves, sometimes referred to in the US as dolma. And you're not sure. Are you gonna do the kimchi with sarma? But it's always worth trying, in my humble opinion.
Mim Plavin-Masterman (06:51)
before we get into a very wide ranging conversation that will probably require many show notes and many links, I'd like to take a minute and introduce our guests. So as we've done a couple of times before, we have a pair of guests with us today coming to us from the Philippines. I'd like to start with Ari Luis Halos. And Ari wears many hats and has done many things in his life. And the things I want to focus on directly relevant to our conversation involve
his work in a company that his parents founded called Arnicham and it's a company that makes a bio-fertilizer called Vital N and it goes on corn and rice and other crops. He's had a lot of experience operationally building and running that operation. He also now teaches at the University of the Philippines, Open University, which is the distance learning online campus of the University of Philippines. He teaches actually at the university, he teaches a class in entrepreneurship.
and one of his students in entrepreneurship is joining us today, Neil Antporta. So Neil actually has a company that he's founded and is in the process of getting off the ground called Juan Lift And it's a company that is designed to use the digital environment, digital space to create work and career opportunities for people with orthopedic disabilities. So we're really excited to hear how this idea got started.
and how they're planning to kind of take it big and all of that. So thank you both for joining us from the Philippines. Welcome to What If Instead.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (08:24)
Thanks, Mim. I'm Alejandro Juarez Crawford. My co-host is Mim Plavin, Masterman. And we're on a mission to make launching experiments of your own, including crazy food combinations, but also companies and good things like our guests here have launched as normal as watching some video on your phone. Welcome to What If Instead, the podcast. Now, I'm fascinated to get into how
and why each of you has launched ventures and the what if instead that led you to embrace Arnikem and Juan Lift and also how the two of you work together. But before you get into that, what's in a name? I gotta know. How did the name Arnikem come about and how?
Ari Halos (09:17)
Okay, so like yeah my it's actually my father who thought of the name Arnechem It's not because like we have a chemical fertilizer or something because like yeah, our Fertilizer is actually based on microbes But what he did was like he took our pet names and combined them so like in Arnechem the AR is my name, Ari and The N comes from my mom's what's this her nickname?
Nina. Then the I comes from my sister, Imnes's name. Then my dad's name is Panchano, but he's called, his nickname is Cheeto, so that's where the CH came from. And then my youngest brother is named Emmanuel. like we just combined all these, my dad combined all of this and came up with Arnicam. So like if I introduce myself, they ask us, what kind of chemicals do you make? Like,
No, we don't make any because we're actually into bio-fertilizers and stuff, but microbes, like yeah. I don't know where he, but yeah, basically he just got our names and put them in a blender and stuff like in the Arnicam.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (10:33)
I just love it. It's a beautiful full family portmanteau of nicknames. And Ari, you don't know this, but we have something in common in that it wasn't a company at this stage. But when I was nine years old, my younger brother convinced my parents to get a dog and we adopted the dog from the SPCA, et cetera, but we could not agree on a name. So we ended up with an acronym.
You know, it sounds like a shadowy organization. was S.A.H.M. So we called the dog Sam, but it really stood for Snapper, Amnon, Henry, Max, which I guess were the what each of us thought of. I think my brother was going for Snapper, which, you know, sounded real tough to his eight year old self. Anyway, Henry had been my grandfather's dog. Amnon, of course, was my mother and Max was my dad.
Ari Halos (11:11)
No.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (11:31)
But wait, what about Juan Lift? Where did that name come from?
Charnylle Antiporda (11:35)
Yeah, so, one leaf is a popular name here in the Philippines, which is a Spanish name. In English, it's John. So they are usually names for protagonists on movies or tell us they're yes. And leaf, which is something that needs to move differently.
So we people have orthopedic disabilities, we are associated with that. But we wanted also to challenge the norm that we PWDs can lift also the digital economies by providing decent works. Yeah.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (12:17)
Let's start
actually with that point where this idea of lift has these two meanings, right? Both moving differently and using digital space in new ways. Can you unpack each of those for us in terms of how Juan Lift does each one?
Charnylle Antiporda (12:42)
Yeah, so here in the Philippines, there are a lot of programs for Pweds, but people who are in wheelchair are being left behind because of course they are not physically able. So we in Juan Lift, we wanted to digitalize as we, there are a lot of opportunities waiting for them here in the digital era.
Ari Halos (12:56)
you
Charnylle Antiporda (13:12)
So on this, it's very convenient, accessible, and very sustainable. So yeah, we come up with that.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (13:12)
Mm-hmm.
Ari Halos (13:18)
.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (13:20)
Can you give us an example or a story of how Juan Lift would remove a barrier and also just for listeners who may not know the acronym, tell us about PWD, what that means, what the barrier is and how Juan Lift gets us over it.
Ari Halos (13:38)
you
Charnylle Antiporda (13:39)
Yeah, so PWD stands for persons with disabilities. So one example is me. I am a PWD who have autoimmune disease. And upon thinking about my future, I'm a little bit worried because there are no jobs that is suitable for me. Employers, I tried to apply on different jobs.
And employers often demand for your physical presence, which is a challenge for me since there are no accessible transportation and infrastructure here in the Philippines. So in one leaf, we will solve that by providing trainings and upscaling for people who have orthopedic disabilities and by just going digital.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (14:20)
Mm-hmm.
Mim Plavin-Masterman (14:36)
follow
up on that for one second, so is the idea that the training and the upskilling would allow the people with disabilities to do remote work from their house? Is that the plan? So it might be something like photo editing or data entry or things like that where you could do it from home. That's roughly the idea.
Charnylle Antiporda (14:47)
Yeah. Yeah.
so upon conceptualizing with Juan Lift, we are very lucky that one of our members is a virtual assistant. So she made a huge contribution on our project and we wanted to niche it down our business, which is to focus on healthcare, healthcare industry.
Ari Halos (15:05)
Hmm.
Charnylle Antiporda (15:21)
very refreshing to hear and fascinating that a people who have disability is working at the healthcare industry, is often associated with assistance on us.
Ari Halos (15:33)
Okay.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (15:35)
Now, the traditional approach has always involved ramps and literally physical lifts to make entry into places possible. And if I'm hearing right, you're saying that's all important, but we may be able to leapfrog some of it by bringing the training and the digital access to people.
Ari Halos (15:41)
.
.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (16:02)
whose minds and hands and abilities can be so useful. Tell us a little bit, you mentioned the virtual assistant on your team, that's Rachel, right? Tell us a little bit about how that collaboration helped to shape this and others on your team and what they brought. And I'm also curious how Professor Ari.
Charnylle Antiporda (16:18)
Yes.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (16:30)
was involved in working with you on.
Charnylle Antiporda (16:32)
Yeah, so before Rachel, get feedback that they really cannot understand what our focus on. So when I got an email from Rachel, she discussed the different pros and cons of our project. And she mentioned that it's very too broad to just say that we are going to digital.
mentioned her experience as a virtual assistant. had a meeting and like we agree that broad and as for me, I really cannot understand what is the goal of our Ari also is very supportive on us. He introduced different virtual agencies here in the Philippines
also experienced interviewing them and made a contribution on Juan Lift and we are able also to gap the issues that they are experiencing.
Ari Halos (17:20)
and
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (17:31)
we can actually break those three things you just mentioned down. First of all, let me frame it in that there's a trap for people developing new solutions to live in this very generic and general and vague space. We're going to use digital to help people with disabilities, which is a great place to start, but it's not concrete enough to turn into something real. And if I'm hearing you right,
Ari Halos (17:42)
Thank you.
.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (17:58)
there were at least three things that helped to bridge the gap from that big idea to something that could live in the real world and help real people. And tell us about this email exchange with Rachel. What prompted that? Was that something that Professor Ari had assigned? Why were you having this conversation? And then tell us also about the interaction, the folks that Professor Ari led you to speak with, the stakeholders.
Ari Halos (17:59)
Okay.
Thank
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (18:26)
Because that's another trap is to just try to do it all yourself and not deal with what exists. And thirdly, a little bit about how what you learned with the coaching of Ari in order to actually do this. Can you break it all down for us in a little bit of a
Charnylle Antiporda (18:43)
think it's midnight when I read Rachel's email for One Live. She introduced herself and my attention got caught when she said that she has experienced
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (19:00)
Why was she introducing herself?
did she know? Let me just, sorry, stop you for a second. How did she know about JuanLift? Why was she emailing you at midnight?
Ari Halos (19:05)
Yeah.
Charnylle Antiporda (19:06)
really because of RebelBase. So it's an online platform and we posted there our project called Juan Lift and we also posted our goals, what is the problems, what is our solution. So upon reading that we are going to digital, she immediately emailed us and as I said, she introduced her as a virtual assistant.
Ari Halos (19:07)
Yeah.
Charnylle Antiporda (19:34)
So that when it all started, the magic happens. And it's a roller coaster ride already.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (19:34)
Hmm.
Ari Halos (19:37)
Thank
You
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (19:43)
This makes me think of our food combinations, right? You bring your vision together with her experience as a digital assistant and suddenly you have enchiladas with mole sauce or something like
Mim Plavin-Masterman (19:53)
I feel like that's not the metaphor we want to be going for. I feel like we're better off with like sweet spaghetti and fried chicken.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (19:56)
No, it's not working. All right, thank you.
Okay, then
it became sweet spaghetti, Filipino style. All right, better, better. Okay, okay, okay. We're cooking with sweet spaghetti. All right, so please go on.
Mim Plavin-Masterman (20:07)
Right? Like, yeah, they're little better, a little better.
Charnylle Antiporda (20:14)
Yeah, so we also get in touch with different virtual agencies here in the Philippines thanks to Sir Ari. And we learned that they also offer trainings for people who have disabilities. But the thing is, they just offer trainings and there are no assurances that these trained uniquely-abled people are going
to have a decent job. So that's when we want to fill the gap for Juan Lift. They also mentioned that they also struggles on being not technologically adept and lack of So that's something that we wanted to bridge. And for Juan Lift what we want, our goal is just to give
work and opportunities for people who have disabilities.
Mim Plavin-Masterman (21:01)
So I want to pick up on one of the things that you said just now and actually ask Ari to explain some of how this works. Because if I understand you right, you still have a two-sided market challenge. You have to have the supply of people with the skills that can be done at home. And then you have to have the companies willing to hire those people or the jobs available for those people.
Ari Halos (21:05)
Okay.
Mim Plavin-Masterman (21:25)
do you think about helping employers understand why they should want this?
Ari Halos (21:28)
Okay.
the Philippines, we actually deploy a lot of virtual assistants. We serve the US, UK, Australian markets. like, yeah, it's funny because like there was this startup founder who came to the Philippines. He's Cuban American from Florida, and he hired a virtual assistant from VGUN where Neil is from.
And they only met when we all met together here in the Philippines. And he's been working with that guy for two years already. And that's the first time that they met. the skills for virtual assistants is already here in the Philippines.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (22:13)
for people to know, vegan is a region in the Philippines where you're from, Neil, correct? Go on.
Ari Halos (22:15)
Yeah, vegan in the Philippines.
We already have those kinds of skills. As you can hear from Neil, he's already conversant in English. He can work on Microsoft, Microsoft Office and stuff. Like he can do all these tasks that virtual assistants can do. And like, so we already have that skill here in the Philippines. Like we only need to connect these guys, people like Neil to people in the States. Like, like usually the guys who
get virtual assistants from here are either startup founders or small business owners who hire them for like bookkeeping and stuff like on QuickBooks. So I'm not sure if you're like, yeah, they're a sponsor, but like, yeah, they work on stuff like that. Some of them do graphic, graphic designing. Some do, what's this? They play around with Excel and do all these.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (23:02)
Hmm
Mim Plavin-Masterman (23:04)
Yep. Yep.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (23:04)
Yeah, yeah.
Ari Halos (23:17)
What's this pivot tables and stuff? Like the skills are already here. We really just need to connect those the people in other countries soon with people like Neil.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (23:19)
Mm-hmm.
this is extremely powerful what you're describing. We think of it partly as an opportunity, but even more I think of the loss when I've had the opportunity to work with you, Neil, if someone doesn't get the benefit of your brain and your skills, we're losing the best of our talent to that project. And what I love about
Charnylle Antiporda (23:54)
you
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (23:58)
You're what if instead is you're saying, well, there are many of us who, who have talent that someone really needs it skills that someone really needs. And, by bridging this gap, we're creating all kinds of value. And so there are at least two places I'm so curious where to go. One is very practical, which is for Juan lift. What does it take to build that bridge? What are, how have you, how have you tested it out?
with and model it out to say, what are the obstacles? What are the missing pieces and how do you make it work? And then the other question is, is actually to segue a little bit into the fact that we all have even worked together in a learning situation. I'd be curious, Ari, after that to ask you to think a little bit about what has it been like to work with people in 20 different countries to solve problems together, including on this project.
You first, Neil. What are some of the obstacles that you need to overcome to make this practice?
Charnylle Antiporda (24:59)
Thank you.
Yeah, so upon working on this project, am very curious. we wanted to know what are the needs for our did different surveys and interviews from PWD representatives, stakeholders, government agencies.
NGOs, for PWDs, and also for doctors and clinics who will be our like, of the, one of the challenges that we face is really, it's really gathering them because, they may, there are constraint on time, but
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (25:23)
Mm-hmm.
Charnylle Antiporda (25:40)
they are very accommodating for us to lend their time. And for OneLeaf, we had a struggle on our financial model. So like we computed different results that make OneLeaf profitable. So yeah, but aside from addressing the technologically adept or lack of resources,
We have done our research. So yeah.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (26:07)
So why develop this in a global forum? These stakeholders, it sounds like many of them that you're interviewing are local and others are around the world, but why develop this within a forum like the one where you worked with Professor Ari? Talk to us a little bit about that. And Ari, I'd love to hear also from you what's going on there as you work.
one list.
Neil, first you, why take this to a global forum?
Charnylle Antiporda (26:40)
Yeah, because we are being left behind. So we need to take prompt action already to give us a better future. And also sharing our story would also empower other PWDs to stand up also for themselves and also recognize their rights that they also deserve to have a decent and equal opportunities.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (26:59)
Mm.
Charnylle Antiporda (27:10)
So what we wanted here in Juan Lift is to share that we PWDs are also creative, that we are not disabled, but we are uniquely abled.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (27:23)
And Professor Ari, how did you work with a team that had this incredible vision? What if instead we were able to take that unique ability and bring it to the people who need it? Talk to us as an educator and an entrepreneur about working with the team as well as others around the world if they were involved in this.
Ari Halos (27:44)
Yeah, so basically
like, we joined the course with you guys and Eban and like, yeah. So what happened was that we were exposed to people from all around the world in different situations and most of them are in very difficult situations like people from Myanmar getting scared of being out as student today and the soldier tomorrow. Like people in Afghanistan where women can't even
earn a high school degree and yet dreaming of becoming a doctor, stuff like that. And what inspired me about Neil's situation is that like, yeah, he says he's got orthopedic problems. He has problems with mobility, but he's making the effort to lift himself up, not just himself, but people like him.
So like, yeah, that's what inspired me. like, yeah, I tried to, also with my other students, I tried to link them with people in my network. Like we met up with, so after meeting with Neil in his place in Vigan, we went to a city called Baguio, not so near, not so far from where Neil is. And then we met with an entrepreneur who also has a VA, a virtual assistant agency. And she's from an...
Indigenous People group. She's from a tribe and she's helping people in her tribe to become virtual assistants also, like working on QuickBooks and stuff like that. so I thought that what she was doing for her tribe's people, like people in literally in mountains, becoming virtual assistants for people in the States, in Australia. And they said, maybe Neil should have a conversation with her. And they actually
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (29:15)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Ari Halos (29:30)
met online. It was in a way, I'm glad that I was part of that enabling process. I also heard of someone from Bangladesh where they had problems with taking care of the inheritance of the women. I was also under- because my dad recently
and I also took care of our inheritance. It's a difficult process and I can't imagine like we in our case in the Philippines we it's difficult as it is and it's doubly difficult for people for women in Bangladesh to to take care of their inheritance. like so I reached and I told the people working on that project like you have a solution that could probably also apply in our case like
you have a difficulty there, maybe you can probably start trying your solution in our case a little bit easier, but it will help you gain experience in applying it in your case back in Bangladesh.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (30:39)
so I just wanted to note that was Team Ashroy, and then over to you, excuse me, Mim.
Mim Plavin-Masterman (30:44)
I have an observation and a question. So it sounds like if I'm understanding the business model correctly, it's a staffing and placement agency, sort of all in one. Okay, so when Neel and when Ari and Neel, when you coordinated meeting with this woman trying to do the same thing or doing the same thing for the indigenous, some level, she's your competitor,
Ari Halos (30:45)
Mm-mm.
Hmm.
Mim Plavin-Masterman (31:09)
she help you? I don't mean that, I know it sounds funny, like, right? I mean, why would, yeah.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (31:14)
Yeah.
Ari Halos (31:16)
Yeah, for one thing, because she realized that the market is so big. She can't serve it by herself. As it is, was already having some staffing problems as well.
Mim Plavin-Masterman (31:26)
Okay.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (31:30)
Sometimes you're working together to get customers in the global market that neither of you would have otherwise gotten.
Ari Halos (31:36)
Yeah, because she was working more on bookkeeping. So yeah, that's one skill that probably doesn't appeal to many people, like they're dealing with numbers and stuff.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (31:45)
Hmm.
Hey hey
hey, careful. I was a recovering math nerd here. I love the numbers.
Ari Halos (31:54)
but like, there's a like, I love I love
numbers. like, and then like some people they do, they are creative. like they work on like stuff like, yeah, graphic design. Others are have patience to like, to look into patients records, like what Neil's probably planning to do. Like, there's so many skills, there's so many, the market is huge. Like, yeah. It's like what we did before in
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (32:21)
Yeah.
Ari Halos (32:24)
also in my company. We collaborate also with people who, when you look on paper, they're actually competitors. But if we collaborate, you supply the seeds, I supply the fertilizer. So yeah, we work together to enter a market.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (32:35)
Mm-hmm.
an old song, you've got the brains, I've got the brawn, let's make lots of money. But seriously, you've got this fertilizer, I've got the seeds. Will you tell us a story about how that happened? So two places I'm hoping to go. One, tell us about that, how you were able to collaborate effectively. And I'm also interested in this idea you've articulated, Ari, of all these talents that might not be together. You might not have known each other.
Ari Halos (32:43)
Yeah.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (33:04)
from school or from work and yet we're able to bring them together. And I want to know if that's part of Juan Lift's vision. So first, talk to us about that story.
Ari Halos (33:11)
Yeah, okay. So like, yeah,
there was this bidding in province down south and they were looking for a lot of products. Like it would be impossible for a single supplier to supply them all. So like, yeah, I had a friend who had another friend. He linked us together. He said, let's bid on this project together. So like, yeah, I supply the fertilizers and you supply the seeds. You supply another.
There were two kinds of fertilizers there, so I supplied one of them.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (33:45)
for the customer, you were presenting a complete solution together. Am I hearing you right?
Ari Halos (33:48)
Yeah, yeah. That's what we,
essentially that's what we did. We collaborated to bring a complete solution to the province.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (33:55)
And did your customer appreciate that, that collaboration? Can you tell us that part of the story?
Ari Halos (34:00)
Yeah, because instead
of them talking to so many people, because here in the Philippines, the government has so many failed bids because no single supplier can bring in everything. So working together, we were able to enable the province to buy the whole complete solution.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (34:18)
Hmm
Ari Halos (34:27)
If they had problems, they just had to talk to just one person.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (34:30)
So this is a very powerful idea. Often we think that a complete solution has to come from a conglomerate, from a large firm that can bring multiple pieces together. But if I'm hearing you right, various small players can together serve needs to create a whole solution for a customer. I'm curious whether you all were able to really get to know that customer's needs.
and be responsive in ways the conglomerate might not have been? Was there an opportunity there?
Ari Halos (35:02)
Yeah, because like
the problem with conglomerates is like you lead you because I also came from a big company prior I used to work with government prior to Working on the start up with my parents. Like yeah, I'm used to dealing with bureaucracy So like yeah, it's such a pain to come up with a simple decision like especially South East
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (35:09)
go ahead.
Hmm.
Ari Halos (35:26)
Asian cultures we take forever to make decisions like a simple decision that a startup can do in a snap like within an hour takes two weeks at least in a big
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (35:27)
Hmm.
I don't want to try to challenge your leadership there, but I think decisions with bureaucracies, that's a universal, right? They're so slow. It's so frustrating. And yet we've been led to think that's the only option so often, right? So I'm very fascinated. I wondered if I'm not making too strong a segue here. I wondered, Neil, whether that phone call with Rachel,
Ari Halos (35:44)
Yeah.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (36:05)
or that meeting with Rachel to the stakeholders that you were interviewing that you started to talk about and the competitors, were you also combining pieces to create a complete solution or is that part of your vision for JuanLift?
Charnylle Antiporda (36:22)
Yeah, Miss Rachel is really the game changer here in Juan Lift Aside from our experiences, since the VA industry is already saturated, there are a lot of niche. So for Juan Lift, we wanted to niche it down and target a market that is
evolving. So, Ms. Rachel also guide us on providing information on the pros and cons for the healthcare industry because of course, as a business,
What we wanted for our employees is to be sustainable and that they can thrive in the long run. upon having multiple discussions, we established Juan Lift as an online job platform that will connect people who have disabilities with doctors
ECUs being accessible and for both of our customers and talents.
Mim Plavin-Masterman (37:19)
can I ask one follow-up question on that? And it's sort of several parts, so stay with me. You've talked about, and Ari has talked about, companies in Australia, in states throughout Southeast Asia, where the insurance for healthcare is really different, right? Some countries have a national health service, like in Australia, for example, so supporting the doctors in some ways is much more uniform, much easier than in the states.
where we have a patchwork system of some, and some people are covered by employer health insurance, some are covered by government, right? It's kind of all over the place. So the reason I'm asking this is when we think about health insurance, like the health insurance market in some areas, it seems like a really natural fit. Anywhere where there's a national health service seems like a really straightforward thing to make sure that you are able to provide the constant training and up-skilling for the people. I'm just wondering, like,
I'm saying this as someone who's had to navigate the US health system. It's a mess. So how are you training or how are you ensuring that all the people that you're training are able to navigate the 15 different insurance rules and regulations to help the doctors? reason I'm asking all this, and my setup is, the goal is make your people incredibly useful to the doctors. That's a much harder thing in the States with our massive insurance than in some other countries.
Charnylle Antiporda (38:45)
Juan Lift, since we also research about the healthcare system in the United States, and in Juan Lift, we are not just here to provide them trainings, but also to comply on the laws in the United States. So one of the features of Juan Lift is to train people.
people who have disabilities on HIPAA. So it's like the privacy act in the United States. of course, as a virtual assistant, we just don't need to provide the assistance, but also to comply loss on asset in the United States
Mim Plavin-Masterman (39:16)
Yep. The privacy, the privacy. Yep.
Charnylle Antiporda (39:35)
everything places and went smoothly.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (39:39)
There's a big idea. This is what's striking me as I listen that you started with help people with orthopedic disabilities to use digital to surmount these leaps and make their incredible talent available to people. Then there's and then there's this these collaborations we've talked about bring together these various talents. But then it sounds as if you're actually being extremely specific
as you become responsive to the use cases. just heard you say you're understanding US healthcare regulations, right? So you're going from big idea to multi-point collaboration to very specific use cases, knowing everything about it. I just want to pause and think about that because that is magic and not what we always hear.
big vision to this very narrow focus to respond to user needs. But it also makes me think about there's a recent Trevor Noah podcast,
Ari Halos (40:43)
Hmm.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (40:44)
they say the system doesn't care about you. then, Christina and by way of his cohost with Trevor Noah says,
I was on the phone to customer service for hours crying because of claims. And she's speaking about the shooting of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare. And she says it in a way, and they're talking about how while they don't endorse that shooting, they relate to the intense pain of what Mim and I call life in cattle class.
So I want to ask you, as you're thinking about these needs, you've really focused my mind on how can we small innovators meet needs in ways that the conglomerates are failing to do? How do each of you think about that, that big problem, even as you're testing these incredible and really bringing these incredible solutions from Juan Lift to Arne Kim?
Charnylle Antiporda (41:38)
Thanks.
Ari Halos (41:53)
So like, yeah, I'm sorry if I want to, I'm sorry Neil, if I want to comment on that. Because like my sister's a doctor in the States and yeah, they complain about not being able to give patient care. They're actually more like defending their decisions to the insurance companies. So like, yeah, if you have virtual assistant who understands
Charnylle Antiporda (42:00)
Say
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (42:13)
Mm.
Ari Halos (42:21)
healthcare needs like because like neil's a pwd he goes to the hospital quite often so he feels these things that he knows that these things are actually necessary procedures so like the doctor like my my sister she was trained to like operate and now she's actually a psychiatrist so she's playing with people's minds but nevertheless she's more of like yeah she she's trained on treatment
She's trained on helping people get better rather than
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (42:54)
Ari's sister, if you're busy playing with people's minds right now, he also said you're trained to help people get better. Just saying.
Ari Halos (42:55)
Haha.
Yeah, so she
wasn't trained to become a lawyer. She was trained to become a doctor, to treat people, not defend her decisions to some other, to these big conglomerates.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (43:12)
Huh, huh, so the doctor feels that her decisions are being overridden or she's having to navigate what the lawyers think is important. I'm hearing right, aren't I?
Ari Halos (43:20)
Yeah, so like
yeah, that's why I'm thinking that Neel has a real big opportunity. Juan Lift has a big opportunity here. Like people are frustrated with that kind of system. They're paying through the nose for insurance and they expect when they get sick, the insurance will take care of them. Turns out that there are lots of denials. Like yeah, they're frustrating.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (43:42)
Yeah.
Yeah, this is is so striking. There's a phrase in user experience design, right? Empathy based designing based on empathy. But if we don't know the situation the way Ari describes you knowing it, Neil, how empathetic can we be? Then our empathy is just it's just good intention from a distance. And we all know how counterproductive someone's good intentions.
Ari Halos (43:58)
Hmm.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (44:13)
can be, and I don't now mean from a distance remotely, I mean from a distance situationally. Can you pick up, Neil, it's very powerful what Professor Ari has said, how has your understanding of these situations in healthcare, as well as the power that can be brought from people with orthopedic disabilities to meet these needs, how has that shaped your thinking for one?
Charnylle Antiporda (44:38)
Yeah, so during our sustainable entrepreneurship class, Sir Sebastian mentioned that if you are closer to the pain, you will most likely get a solution. So as a PWD who experienced different struggles, and also, of course, as a PWD, I have health issues. So I also
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (44:52)
Hmm.
Charnylle Antiporda (45:05)
go to different hospitals for checkups, there I observed that during monthly checkups or like weekly checkups, I observed that doctors or clinics often receive overwhelming patients, documents, and tasks. So like that's when I got an idea like what if we challenge them to
as because they also raise an issue that they wanted to have an assistant but they are having difficulties of looking for the right talent. So as me who is digitally adept, who has a background on different virtual assistant and also
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (45:34)
Hmm.
Ari Halos (46:03)
Hmm.
Charnylle Antiporda (46:03)
can manipulate
computers. That's when I got an idea. What if we are the assistant for doctors? And that's when like the idea came up.
Ari Halos (46:07)
Mm.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (46:13)
Hmm. Hmm. Who might not be that good
at what you know how to do in terms of manipulating things with computers, right? So the doctor can be good at the psychiatry or the surgery. You can do this other part. Keep talking. I'm really transfixed by this.
Charnylle Antiporda (46:27)
Yeah, so that's when an idea came up with me. So what if we become the assistant and not just the people who need assistance? So that's when Juan Lift was born and eventually I'm happy that it's happening right now.
Ari Halos (46:46)
Yeah.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (46:48)
often referred to this as the Ocean's Eleven principle based on those old movies where either the Soderbergh version or the Rat Pack version where they, of course, what we're really all trying to do is rob casinos as entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurs, but you can't rob the casinos if you only have a team of 11 or 12 pickpockets, right? You can't. You need an explosives expert and you need a safe cracker, et cetera.
Ari Halos (47:01)
Okay.
Yeah.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (47:16)
But I hear you saying is that there's this really unexploited or vastly underexploited opportunity in the digital age to bring together in the old Reese's commercial, my chocolate and your peanut butter to make Reese's, right? This is not an ad for Reese's either, right? But to bring together these capabilities that can then make needed things think of all the people in the world who can't do something.
in their skill set because they don't have the array of digital capabilities you've talked about from graphic design to bookkeeping to spreadsheet analysis. And if we could bring those together, we could release so much potential to meet needs in this world.
I should note that Sebastian Crowe, whom you referred to a minute ago, has an episode on what if instead called 100,000 Small Experiments. And so let's use that maybe as we have just a few more minutes. But I'd love to hear your point of view, Professor Ari. You mentioned several, a number of teams solving distinct kinds of problems, right?
You mentioned team ash really trying to enable women to navigate barriers to gaining their inheritance their rightful inheritance in Bangladesh And this is a team of people from around the world, but led by Bangladeshi women What has your experience been thinking about these other very different projects? alongside Juan lift and for you Neil, I'm curious How does it stretch or
or spin the mind to be thinking about inheritance rights and plastic waste and these other problems, even while you're so narrowly focused on the use cases that you're here to serve and to transform and disrupt.
Ari Halos (49:15)
in my case, like, the beautiful thing about this is like, so we're tackling so many different problems from all over the world, different corners of the world, but the unifying thing is that they're so close to the problem. Like, when they were telling their story, like the guy with the... there's... so, Ash Roy.
It was inspired by the fact that one of the members of the team had a mom who was taking care of her inheritance, but she had to go through a whole maze of regulations and stuff. And even years after, she hasn't even solved the problem yet. But I think they eventually solved it. But yeah, there was that opportunity to help other women.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (49:43)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Ari Halos (50:11)
their inheritance issues. And she was so close to the problem. And there's this other group from Afghanistan. Like, I didn't understand why the person on the team was so passionate when he was a guy. Turns out that his sister has a dream of becoming a doctor, but she's in Afghanistan. they don't allow, the Taliban doesn't allow women of teenagers, teenager girls to get into high school.
So how much more her dream of becoming a doctor. And yeah, I could relate to that because my sister's a doctor and she's practicing in the States right now. So like, yeah, so that's the nice, yeah, in the case of Neil, because like he's a PWD and he's not resting on his laurels. He's lifting himself up and in the process he's trying to lift up other people together with him. And what they...
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (50:51)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Ari Halos (51:11)
that being a patient,
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (51:12)
So it's...
Ari Halos (51:12)
he's now helping the doctors, right?
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (51:16)
it's as if by, as you've put it, by putting shining a light on problems that others might even not have thought about, we're then able to help not just ourselves, right? Not just Neil's classmates' mom who struggled to get her inheritance, but also help a lot of other people. And I just want to pause and think about this. If we allow it, not allow, it's the wrong verb, isn't it?
when you seize, Neil, the opportunity to identify these needs, show this opportunity, then as Professor Ari has said, you're able to open up opportunity for lot of other people. By the way, the project focused on women in Afghanistan is called Hope Across Borders. And I'm really happy to say that one of our judges at the competition,
Ari Halos (52:10)
Hmm.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (52:14)
Hanny Romaine was so inspired by that project that she personally offered to to meet the ask for resources to launch that project And is now in touch with the team to do that So that's another type of connection in addition to talent that when you bring people together in this way We can also bring resources which are looking to enable solutions
Mim Plavin-Masterman (52:40)
And I think another piece of this, as you've alluded to, is that we're not any of us, just one thing. We're many things from where we come from to who we grew up with, to where we live, to whatever makes us who we there's multiple Venn diagrams where some part of our experience is relevant for somebody else's opportunity, even if it's not the thing that we're working on.
I might know someone who's a person with disabilities. I'm like, wait, I should tell them about this thing that they could now go do. Because I didn't even think that it was an opportunity for them until Neil presented it. Or I might have expertise from a completely different area that's really relevant to help him fill a little hole or a missing piece in what he's doing.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (53:20)
Mm.
Wait, that's amazing. So there's not just a permission, but there are synapses that fire. Opportunities we see. Tony Hsieh, who founded Zappos, an online shoe company that got acquired by Amazon, he talked in his book, Delivering Happiness, about these tests where...
Mim Plavin-Masterman (53:32)
Yeah.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (53:47)
folks would read a book and there would be a hundred dollar bills or way or codes I forget what and and and he thought of it in terms of optimism but I'm tempted to say there's an entrepreneurial mindset which and and the point of these tests was that if you did if you lacked that mindset you didn't even notice the hundred dollar opportunities now you're taking it way beyond hundred dollar bills here Neil and and and and you're opening up
Whole ways that things could work differently in the world to open up, to solve problems, to bring talent to opportunity. Neil, talk to us a little bit about are there ways as you do this, whom would you love to make it possible to ask the what if instead question the way you are?
Charnylle Antiporda (54:38)
Yeah, so as I've said, I am closer to the pain and this is also why I took digital entrepreneurship at the University of the Philippines to give the opportunity to have a decent work for PWDs because I am a living proof that if we are given the assistance and the support
we are able to perform well on our field. So on this episode, I just want to share my stories and my project to all our possible customers, which is the doctors and possible investors, because our project is not just about for the money, but it is for the future for people like me.
and a testament that we have an opportunity that is waiting for us, that our life will not just revolve around our wheelchairs, on our home, and that we are also respected and given the opportunity that we deserve. So, like, on one leaf, we believe that no one is left behind.
So it is our goal also to provide them and also make it sustainable.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (56:11)
Neil Antiporda Ari Ghelos, you make clear to me what it means to ask what if instead and bring the vision you just described. Neil.
And I'd ask all our listeners when you're doom scrolling and reading that news story, and it just seems as everything's impossible, just press that back 30 seconds or back 15 and listen to what Neil just said. Because it's that that I think can fuel the future worth having. Thank you so much for joining us here on What If Instead.
Ari Halos (56:51)
Thanks