Grace in Contribution

Kat Borlongan is a pioneering Filipina innovator who is shaping the future of European technology, and this is why France has awarded her knighthood

- Syrah Vivien Inocencio

Titles and positions have never quite captured it for Kat Borlongan. "Work tends to be defined by the jobs you're holding," she says, "but I've always seen mine more holistically." Over two decades in France, that framing has allowed her to move between startups, government and policy without treating each as a separate chapter.

That instinct to operate across systems rather than within thememerged early. Born in Manila and shaped in part by her early years in Japan, Borlongan left the Philippines at 20 to study in France.

Admirably, she learned the language from scratch before entering Sciences Po Bordeaux.

An early chapter in Montreal followed, during which she, at 23, became the youngest bureau chief in the history of Reporters Without Borders. From her initial role as executive assistant, she rose to executive director of the non-profit's Canadian office. The promotion followed a defining moment: stepping in, alongside the organisation's president, to handle the case of a journalist detained in Iran. It was an early demonstration of the qualities that would define her career.

Borlongan would later return to France, shaping the conditions under which Europe might emerge as a credible technological power. That ambition has since grown. Europe's startup ecosystem is now valued at roughly US$4 trillion, with more than 40,000 active startups and over 600 unicorns across the continent, according to Beresol, an independent EU public affairs consultancy. Yet the imbalance with the United States remains pronounced-venture capital investment in the EU is still more than four times lower, and large-scale exits continue to lag. As Borlongan frames it, the question is not only whether Europe can compete but whether it can define its own model of technological development.

"I really believe that the kind of world a European technological superpower will build is one that's more centred on humanity," she says.