The Young Lotus Workshop is one of the highlights of ADFEST, a 3-day workshop that inspires and informs ambitious up-and-coming creatives from across the region. ADFEST is delighted to announce that for the first-time ever, a tech platform will be hosting the Young Lotus Workshop.  Google will host the Young Lotus Workshop 2026, with the theme, Unbound: Human + Creativity with YouTube, where ‘Unbound’ describes the next era of creative culture.

Google told this year’s cohort of Young Lotus aspirants, “Human creativity is the constant. The world around it is the variable - expanding and evolving in ways we never imagined. Welcome to Unbound. In this workshop, we are embracing this new landscape to shatter the constraints of traditional advertising. We aren’t just making ads, we are engineering culture.

“By fusing your human creativity with Google and YouTube ecosystem, we will explore how to paint on a boundless creative canvas, co-create with a tireless Gen AI Companion, and plug directly into the heartbeat of creator culture. The tools are infinite. The canvas is yours. It’s time to see what happens when your creativity is finally set free.”

The Young Lotus 2026 workshop will be led by Chairperson, Geia Lopez, Head of Creative and Creator Partnerships, Google Southeast Asia.

Geia Lopez is a transformative leader with a career defined by navigating uncharted territory. She has built industry powerhouses from the ground up, notably as the founding architect of Mediacom’s digital arm and as a top-billing digital strategist at McCann Worldgroup, where she was recognised as one of the industry's Top 10 most awarded strategists in the Philippines. As an IPA Excellence Diploma alumni, Lopez pioneered technology that shifted the focus toward brand distinctiveness, including immersive augmented reality prototypes for global brands.

Notably, Lopez has been a driving force behind the eConomy SEA report, the flagship thought leadership initiative for Southeast Asia and the definitive authority on the region’s digital trajectory. Her work is dedicated to inspiring what’s possible, shining a light on the vast opportunity within Southeast Asia, and more recently, on the transformative potential of the creator economy and AI-powered creativity. Today, her mission is centered on architecting the next era of the creative and creator economy, building the sustainable infrastructure and innovative partnerships that will define the future of the global creative industry, powered by Google's AI.

Geia Lopez commented, “ADFEST Young Lotus is a vital platform for the next generation of creative makers to redefine storytelling. Through this program, Google aims to empower the creative industry with an AI-powered canvas to build brand stories that sit at the epicenter of culture, pairing human ingenuity with emerging technologies. We believe that as AI opens new possibilities, the brand storytellers remain the heart of every breakthrough.”

The Young Lotus Workshop, launched in 2004, the is one of the industry’s longest-running mentoring programs for up-and-coming talent. The workshop is open to advertising professionals aged 30 and under with at least one year’s experience in the communications industry. Teams will be selected by local representatives in markets across the region.

The Young Lotus Workshop 2026 will take place Tuesday 17 – Thursday 19 March. It is designed give the next generation of advertising leaders hands-on, practical experience involving lectures, mentoring and a creative brief with just 24 hours to deliver.

After responding to the brief from Google, the top Young Lotus finalist teams will present their work on stage during ADFEST 2026 on Saturday 21 March at 11.15-13.00. The winners of both the Young Lotus and the Popular Vote will be revealed at the ADFEST Lotus Awards Presentation at 18.00 that evening.

ADFEST 2026, Human+, will be held Thursday 19 – Saturday 21 March 2026 at the Royal Cliff Hotels Group in Pattaya, Thailand. ADFEST is open for delegate registrations. Find out more about the ADFEST delegate registrations here. For the full program, click here.

ADFEST is a not-for profit entity that believes passionately in its role to nurture and support the creative industry in the Asia Pacific and MENA region. It is 1 of only 7 regional creative festivals included in the WARC Creative 100 Rankings, 1 of 12 awards included in the Campaign Brief Asia Rankings, and 1 of 22 awards included in The Drum World Creative Rankings.