Illac Diaz is a social entrepreneur from the Philippines. He studied at Ateneo de Manila University and the Asian Institute of Management. He founded MyShelter Foundation to develop affordable housing solutions in the Philippines using sustainable materials. Some of MyShelter's projects include Pier One transient housing for seafarmers, Central Migrante housing in exchange for labor, and assisting women's peanut shelling cooperatives. Illac also created Liter of Light, a project that provides light to homes using recycled plastic bottles and a small amount of bleach. He has received several awards for social entrepreneurship.

1. Prepared by:
Balones, Russelle Mae
Dela Cruz, Nancy
Galicia, Jhonard
ILLAC DIAZ

2. • Illac was born to Italian-born Silvana nee
Ancellotti who runs an art house Galeria
Duenila and to Ramon, an accomplished
visual artist and brother of Gloria Diaz, the
first Filipina Miss Universe.
• He studied High School in Ateneo de
Manila University (ADMU) in 1990. He
earned his Bachelor of Arts 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.

3. To further his studies, he took a Masters Degree in Entrepreneurship
at the AsianInstitute 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.

4. Pier One - an affordable, clean and safe house for seafarers.
This transient housing is for seamen and prospective contract
workers coming from the provinces, looking for work and waiting
for their next voyage.
Central Migrante Page - a build-for-stay system where
tenants will be able to stay in the compound in exchange for their
labor in constructing parts of the project. The project aims to
reduce the waiting time of overseas Filipino workers from seven
to only three months
Peanut Revolution - help the women to manually shell off
peanuts with simple pedal-powered machines
First Step Coral - an artificial coral reef system to
attract fish to shallower waters.

5. • 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.
• This more affordable, indigenous rather than
fully manufactured construction material
addressed the shortage of clinics and schools
in rural Philippines. My Shelter foundation
has built five clinics and twenty classrooms at
one fourth the cost in 10 provinces, as well as
conducted complementary seminars on
preserving dwindling forest resources.

7. • Filipino Illac Diaz began a project called Liter of
Light to do two things in his home country:
provide light to those who need it and recycle
otherwise useless trash.
• The project uses empty one liter soft drink bottles
in numerous ways, most commonly filling them
with water and a little bleach and fitting these into
the tin-roofs across the slums of Manila and
other places. The refraction brings light into
these very dark dwellings, accomplishing
electricity savings and re-using tons of plastic
that would otherwise go to landfills or worse.

8. • Illac is the 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.
• Ten Outstanding Young Persons of the World for Social Enterprise Award
Recipient 2006
• His latest citation is the “Young Global Leaders of 2008” by the World
Economic Forum (WEF) in Geneva.