Illac Diaz

The founder of MyShelter Foundation and Design Against the Elements (DAtE)

A man who is a dreamer but also believes that failure is part of success. Illac Diaz was born in Manila in September 15. He is the son of Ramon, an accomplished visual artist and brother of Gloria Diaz, the first Filipina Miss Universe.

Career and Education

Nurtured by an Italian-born mother, Silvana nee Ancellotti who runs an art house Galeria Duenila, Illac studied High School in Ateneo de Manila in 1990. He earned his bachelor in Management Economics also at Ateneo.

As a young fellow and bachelor, he was then a model, a party-goer and an actor for sometime. He was also an advertising executive for Smart Communication. But he strove for more.

To further his studies, he took a Masters Degree in Entrepreneurship at the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) with graduate thesis: “Shanties to Jobs: Creating a Migrant Center in Manila.” Then he later left to study in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston with Urban Planning, Course II – Urban Studies and Planning. In 2008, he took Masters of Political Administration, MPA 1 in Harvard.

Accomplishments

Someone who is as inspired, creative, determined and warm-hearted as Illac is definitely the kind of person who can contribute to improve the social and economic condition of the country. He established Pier One, an affordable, clean and safe house for seafarers. This transient housing is for seamen coming from the provinces, looking for work and waiting for their next voyage. To help the women to manually shell off peanuts with simple pedal-powered machines, he established the “Peanut Revolution”. Then he established First Step Coral, an artificial coral reef system to attract fish to shallower waters. In 2001 up to the present, he is the Executive Director and Founder of MyShelter Foundation, Inc. It is a social enterprise that looks for sustainable housing solutions for homeless and the lack of infrastructure in developing countries, like the Philippines.

Awards

Illac is he youngest AIM alumnus to receive an Honors and Prestige Award because of Pier One. In 2004 he got a three-in-a-row award. He got an Everyday Hero Special Award from the Readers Digest Asia and an Entrepreneur Award from the 1st Johnny Walker Social Award. He was runner-up in New York’s Next Big Idea International Design Competition. He got the First for Social Entrepreneurship from TOYM Award in 2005. His latest citation is the “Young Global Leaders of 2008” by the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Geneva.

Illac is always hungry to experience life to the fullest and inspire others to believe that most of the things that hold us back can be overcome. He always believe that if we are to do things in life, we must be either totally passionate and believe in it or not at all, and just too many people live in the lukewarm state of being indecisive or half hearted. People give up so easily and sometimes it happens at the moment that they are about to reach their dreams. As a person who is a dreamer, he always found a road to success!

TEDxManila - Iliac Diaz - 12/05/09


Talking about Climate Change Adaptability through the creation of sustainable solution for building clinics and classrooms through stronger architecture and planning in low income communities in the rural areas.

1. How do we provide the purest form of charity? Is to make ourselves obsolete
2. To help onces, a week later they come back at your door again.
3. Isn't it more expensive for us to keep acting post-disaster
4. Food, medicine and refugee centers
5. If we design for the future of a country that is vulnerable to disasters but able to adapt we may make it safer.
6. We always ask for funds after the storm
7. Every year we have 20 storms, every year it's destructive and every year it looks like an act of God
8. Storms are definite but our survivability is not
9. If we act with a linear kind of solution to a escalating kind of problem we will have more and more problems in the coming years
10. A lot of our projects are in carbon mitigation, we use this is way to sensitize foreign countries to lower their carbon, which will only help a little bit to our typhoons
11. We are dealing with climate change as reactive and not proactive
12. What we will do ahead of time when the cost are manageable when creativity can be put into concrete structures
13. Instead of donation model after the storm which last weeks
14. We had concerts to raise awareness but what happens in the next storm
15. 70% of our population are in the rural areas and a lot of it are in the coastlines
16. Mass produce housing
17. Focus on classrooms in the rural area because this is where people go to when calamity strikes
18. Empower the people to have a system to build before and rebuild after the calamity strikes
19. 12% forest cover
20. It takes time to make a million trees
21. Bamboo is a material that grows very quickly and 35% more efficient in absorbing carbon
22. No matter what NGO you are, if you have not empowered the community there is no way you can provide housing for the whole eastern seaboard of the country
23. Farmers are empowered to build the schools
24. How do we do thing here and now
25. Negative climate change psychology
26. What more knowledge do we need that the manifestation of climate change is prevalent that it took over our cities.
27. How to empower rural communities
28. We can provide safety before the storm
29. Next generation low-income housing, low impact in the environment, and weather resilient
30. Prevention and not rehabilitation