MANILA -- Canva said it wants to be in the hands of every Filipino student in every classroom in the country. 

This, as its country manager for the Philippines Yani Hornilla-Donato said that visual communication is an essential skill in the workplace and helps boost critical thinking.

The executive also said they have met with new Education Secretary Sonny Angara to discuss how Canva and the Department of Education can work together to roll out Canva for education to all K to 12 students and teachers.

"What we found out last year is that visual communication has become the main source and the main type of communication and currency of how people communicate today, especially in the workforce," she said in an interview with ABS-CBN News.

"So it's become a skill that you need to develop," she explained. "And then now we look back and see what that looks like in the classrooms, right? Who enters the workforce are the students of today. So we really want to be able to bridge the gap in learning."

Donato added that using Canva also boosts students' creativity.

"For example, if you're on your laptop, creating, let's say, a poster for your school. It's not just you putting things together, designing. The iterative process of you putting together a visual communication output allows you to think more critically, have a bit more design thinking, to think about how you might convey your thoughts better or express yourselves better," she said.

"My biggest goal in the hopefully very near future is to really bring Canva in every classroom for every student and every teacher to help inspire creativity and uplift digital and digital literacy and visual comms literacy," she said.

She also said that they already have a learning and engagement partner who will help upskill teachers and other groups who want to use Canva for their own goals. 

PHILIPPINES REMAINS A TOP MARKET

Donato said the Philippines continues to be one of Canva's top 10 markets worldwide.

"In the Philippines, we have around one in seven internet users in the Philippines using Canva. So it's a really, it's a statistic we're very proud of, and we're hoping to increase even more in the coming years."

What makes the Philippine market special, she said, is how "community love" or organic word-of-mouth referral is driving its growth.

"So we have to take care of our communities here. So online, on Facebook, we have a strong group of freelancers and creatives, around 100,000 members. Negosyantes are more than 100,000 members. And Pinoy teachers also more than 100,000 teachers," she related.

"And through these communities, they really empower each other by sharing what they create on Canva, give each other feedback, and in turn, it also helps us shape the kind of content and development we we do for our Philippine market."

Canva eyes becoming ‘essential’ for MSMEs, educators in PH

Donato said they also want to continue helping Filipino freelancers, business owners, and non-government organizations to help support their growth.

Canva makes big push into enterprise market, to offer Affinity graphics tools for ‘free’

"For the next decade, we're excited to engage professional designers as well and big enterprises to bring Canva in every workplace," Donato added.