The Student Who Wondered What Happened Inside Globe Tower

Sometimes, the places you wonder about the most end up shaping your future. For me, that place was Globe Tower. As a mathematics student fascinated by artificial intelligence, I never expected that the building I once photographed from the street would become the place where I developed machine learning solutions, learned from incredible mentors, and discovered what it truly means to be trusted as a data professional.

Clyde Narciso

Data Science Intern

Office of Strategy Management and Customer Experience

Back in 2024, I took a photo of the W City Centre and The Globe Tower in Bonifacio Global City, looking up and wondering what people do inside these big towers.

Globe has always been a household name, synonymous with continuous innovation. I knew then that I wanted to learn from Globe’s customer-first approach in telecommunications. 

A photo I took back in 2024. Just a kid tourist with big dreams.

I never imagined that just a couple of years later, I would be building artificial intelligence solutions inside that very building.

Where it all began

I’m Clyde Narciso. I studied Applied Mathematics at the University of the Philippines Los Baños.

I’ve always been a “batang kompyuter” at heart, and strived to be the best at everything I pursued. Turns out, math is a great avenue to strive to become the best: it is directly measurable, rigorous, and demands elegant problem-solving. Ultimately, it was profound curiosity that led me to pursue mathematics at UP. 

Growing up, I loved movies like A Beautiful Mind, The Man Who Knew Infinity, and The Theory of Everything. They showed me how beautiful mathematics could be. 

As I progressed, I realized that modern AI and data science are essentially foundational mathematics brought to life. At its core, AI is linear algebra, probability, and optimization orchestrated at scale. These simple mathematical foundations power our modern intelligence systems, ending up feeling like magic through continuous innovation. This is what makes this field so fulfilling for me.

Learning new data frameworks honestly makes me feel like Tony Stark, especially when I use large language models (LLMs) that feel like my own personal Jarvis!

Learning that data tells stories

Before joining Globe, I interned as a Data Analytics Intern at WTW.

That experience taught me the crucial human side of data science: communication, project management, and data storytelling. 

“It taught me that a brilliant model is useless if its value is not conveyed properly to stakeholders.”

That experience built the professional foundation I needed to step confidently into Globe’s fast-paced, customer-first engineering environment.

As someone deeply interested in AI and machine learning, Globe was always at the top of my list.

Serving over 60 million subscribers means working with unbelievably massive datasets ready to be utilized to improve customer experience and uplift Filipino lives through connectivity.

For a young Data Scientist, I saw Globe as the ultimate training ground.

Building AI for real people

My final internship presentation about my experience and internship journey with Globe, and iCX 2026, where I led the end-to-end development of the data pipeline.

I served as a Data Science Intern at Globe, primarily building the natural language processing pipelines for the Office of Strategy Management and Customer Experience (OSMCX). 

My internship at Globe revolved around the end-to-end data architecture and pipeline development for iCX 2026, a company-wide survey evaluating internal customer experience across Globe. 

Highlights from the Globe AI Showcase: Presenting the iCX AI solution, showcasing our tool at the demo booth,

and celebrating the journey with a well-earned event shirt.

Together with fellow interns Carla Joy Haboc, Javier Macasaet, and our supervisor Nino Rivera, we engineered the Auto-Bucketing tool. 

Using natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning, this pipeline automated the processing of unstructured survey feedback, compressing what used to take weeks of manual effort down to just a few hours of runtime. 

Our complete AI solution for iCX 2026 was featured in the Globe AI Showcase as one of the top AI solutions at Globe, and presenting this solution at a tool-demo booth was a major highlight for our team!

The people who made the internship unforgettable. From my mentors, Sir Niño Rivera and Sir Jonan Regalario, to my fellow interns, Ja Valdez, Luis Felipe, CJ Haboc, and Javi Macasaet, who shared the journey from day one.

The SET team at OSMCX treated me as a full-fledged data professional from day one. I was honestly both shocked and relieved! That level of trust and autonomy gave me the space to make real decisions, defend my technical choices, and take true ownership of my work. It fast-tracked my transition from a student who writes code to an engineer who develops enterprise solutions.

One philosophy that stayed with me throughout my internship was simple:

GRIT + constructive criticism = great work.

Developing the Auto-Bucketing tool required plenty of iteration. Unstructured human feedback is messy and unpredictable, and our early model outputs weren't perfect. It took continuous code reviews, architectural feedback from our supervisor, and multiple rounds of testing before we achieved sufficient quality. Embracing that feedback loop proved that great AI tools aren't built in a vacuum; they're refined through grit, failure, and constructive collaboration.

Another philosophy I strongly believe in is taking pride in the work.

For me, taking pride in the work means delivering solutions that are robust, scalable, and maintainable long after you leave the room.

“Being a data scientist means never settling for ‘good enough’.”

It pushed me to write clean code, document pipelines thoroughly, and ensure every model we deployed contributed real value to Globe.

A journey that came full circle

At school, data science classes often provide clean, structured datasets all ready for analytics and model development. But through my internship, Globe threw me headfirst into real, unstructured data. 

It completely shifted my perspective: 

“I realized that data engineering, data modeling, and pipeline stability are 80% of the battle.”

Data quality and availability is what makes machine learning pipelines possible, and therefore is most critical for real-world projects.

Globe really honed my maturity in all things data science: automation, analytics, insighting, and machine learning.

Halfway through my internship, I applied and was accepted into the Data Scientist Trainee Program at the Matsuo-Iwasawa Lab of the University of Tokyo through Global Consumer Intelligence (GCI) World 2026. 

Placing 5th at the University of Tokyo AI Hackathon held at UP Diliman,

alongside Dr. Akihiro Nakano of Matsuo-Iwasawa Lab, The University of Tokyo,

who served as facilitator of the hackathon and lecturer for the data science program.

Later, when UTokyo hosted a one-day individual AI hackathon on telecom churn prediction at UP Diliman, the domain knowledge I built at Globe helped me place 5th out of 74 competitors! 

Most excitingly, this entire journey has come full circle: I will be an official Ka-Globe this August as a full-time Data Modeling, AI Automation & Insights Expert!

“My internship at Globe honed me as a data professional: it kickstarted my professional career, allowed me to lead real projects, and empowered me to make smart, consequential decisions.”

To students pursuing Math, Data Science, or AI: don't wait until you feel 100% ready before taking a leap. Bet on yourself. Trust your foundational training, embrace hard problems, and pursue opportunities even if they intimidate you. The steepest learning curves yield the greatest growth.

From team meetings to shared lunches, these everyday moments shaped my internship experience just as much as the work itself.

Globe Telecom, especially the Office of Strategy Management and Customer Experience (OSMCX), is a place where interns are trusted with responsibility, thrusted into opportunities, and fostered to flourish.

Looking back at the student who once stood outside Globe Tower wondering what happened inside, I smile.

Now I know. And I'm excited to continue building what's next.

Discover exciting internship opportunities at Globe here and start your journey of growth today. Follow Globe Telecom on LinkedIn to explore programs designed to help you unlock your full potential.