Photographed by Arwin Doloricon of Metrophoto.
From public service to AI, the academic and author aims to rewrite the blueprint of cities and the digital landscape, one that is built on inclusion
There was a time when author Dan Brown, in his novel Inferno, caused an uproar among Filipinos by describing Manila the “gates of hell.” All the brouhaha aside (divided public opinion, politicians calling him out and almost barring him from entering to the country), Anna Mae Yu Lamentillo, seeing everything unfold as a 22-year-old, was already pondering on a deeper question: What does it mean to build a city where people don’t just survive, but believe in?
Now, in her 30s and completing her Executive Master of Science in Cities at the London School of Economics in July and now now pursuing a Master of Science in Major Programme Management at Oxford University, Lamentillo (also known as Anime) reflects on the author’s controversial description: “I will never describe Manila as ‘the gates of hell,’” she says. “That phrase may have captured a moment of frustration, but it misses what makes this city, and cities like it, so profoundly alive.”
The 34-year-old admits that, in part, the capital region has its chaos. She also cites that through the lens of American-Canadian urban writer and activist Jane Jacobs, disorder can be a “sign of life, of diversity, and of people making a city work in their own creative, adaptive ways.”
Lamentillo reflects: “Manila’s sidewalk vendors, jeepney routes, mixed-use neighborhoods, and tight-knit barangays aren’t symptoms of dysfunction; they’re the foundation of polycentric, walkable, human-scale city.”
For Anime, however, reinventing the Philippines’ urban cities won’t come from copying Western blueprints or wiping the slate clean. Its seeds, in her perspective, are already here, one that is powered by people. “Manila isn’t waiting to be saved. It’s waiting to be understood and invested in, from the street level up.”
She continues, “Manila needs to listen to the people already living there. Their daily experiences should shape how we design our streets, transport, and public spaces.” This sentiment is also shared not just in the capital, but in urban cities across the country.
“A truly livable city doesn’t just accommodate, it welcomes. It creates from spontaneity, for serendipitous encounters: a conversation on a park bench, a shared meal in a carinderia, a child discovering new things on a safe, shaded sidewalk.”
Anna Mae Lamentillo
It was during her tenure as a member of government that cemented her passion for building cities. In one particular project, Lamentillo helped bring home Filipino engineers from around the world. “We asked them to come home, to help build the future. And many of them did,” she recalls. “That was the moment I knew this work could touch something bigger than myself.”
For her, infrastructure isn’t just the goal, it’s a tool, a vehicle for restoring dignity. That’s why her current work focuses on the 15-minute city, a model that reimagines neighborhoods where essential services such as schools, clinics, and markets, are just a short walk or ride away.
“What kind of lives are we really building for? Are we designing for movement or for meaning? [Is it] for cars or for people?” she asks.
Lamentillo isn’t just about physical systems. With NightOwl AI, her latest venture, the academic and author has also moved into the digital space by creating digital equity. A belief, she says, is all about access to language technology, citing that only less than one percent of the world’s 7,159 living languages are “meaningfully supported by AI.”
“At NightOwl, we’re trying to close that Digital Language Divide, one of the most overlooked, yet urgent equity issues of our time,” shares Lamentillo. The tech startup founder also adds that they are focused on supporting underrepresented and indigenous languages with dual intentions: preservation and making them functionally usable in digital spaces: on phones, in classrooms, in public services, and in daily life.
She also launched Carbon Compass, a start-up that uses AI, satellite data, and blockchain to verify carbon credits. According to their website, the tech company aims to deliver transparent, trustworthy climate solutions.
Anime’s vision of the future is quiet and centered on feeling human: “If I could walk through my dream version of a Philippine city, 15 minutes from anywhere, I’d start noticing the quiet. Not silence, but the kind of calm where conversations, birdsong, bicycle bells, and children playing rise above the noise of engines. If we get cities right, we don’t just make better places, we make better lives.”
For more information, visit NightOwl AI’s official website and Carbon Compass’s official website.
