Cover Geraldine Acuña-Sunshine shares insights from her dual mission: using technology to improve learning outcomes and advancing research to tackle a rare neurological disease (Photo: courtesy of Khan Academy Philippines)
Geraldine Acuña-Sunshine shares insights from her dual mission: using technology to improve learning outcomes and advancing research to tackle a rare neurological disease (Photo: courtesy of Khan Academy Philippines)
1 / 1
Education reform and rare disease research meet actionable strategies in Geraldine Acuña-Sunshine’s work—proof that real problems demand real solutions
For nearly two decades, Geraldine Acuña-Sunshine lived what she once assumed would be a conventional professional life. She built a successful career as a corporate lawyer in New York and Boston, navigating complex financial transactions and charting a path many would consider the pinnacle of professional stability.
Then everything changed.
Her brother was diagnosed with X-linked Dystonia-Parkinsonism (XDP), a rare and devastating neurological disorder found almost exclusively among Filipinos. The disease gradually robs patients of control over their bodies. Many lose the ability to walk within the first year. Over time, they may become bedridden and malnourished. For families, the progression is both relentless and heartbreaking.
“Watching someone you love go through that is incredibly painful,” Acuña-Sunshine says. “At some point, I realised that I could not simply stand by and do nothing.”
What followed was not merely a career shift but a reorientation of purpose. Acuña-Sunshine stepped away from the trajectory she had long imagined and entered an unfamiliar world: medical research.
Above Geraldine Acuña-Sunshine meets with an XDP patient through the Sunshine Care Foundation, bringing care and hope to Filipino families (Photo: courtesy of Sunshine Care Foundation)
Geraldine Acuña-Sunshine meets with an XDP patient through the Sunshine Care Foundation, bringing care and hope to Filipino families (Photo: courtesy of Sunshine Care Foundation)
1 / 1
She founded a research centre at Massachusetts General Hospital—a hospital affiliated with Harvard University—to bring together scientists studying XDP. What began as a deeply personal mission gradually evolved into a global scientific collaboration. Over more than a decade, the effort has produced breakthroughs that once seemed improbable: the identification of the gene responsible for the disease, the development of cellular and animal models for testing therapies, and the discovery of promising therapeutic targets. Today, clinical trials are beginning.
Yet the science revealed another truth: research alone would not be enough.
Many XDP patients live in poverty, particularly in Region VI or Western Visayas of the Philippines where the disease is most prevalent. Through the Sunshine Care Foundation, Acuña-Sunshine and her colleagues provide free clinical care and livelihood support to around 500 indigent patients and their families—an acknowledgement that illness rarely exists in isolation from economic hardship.
Working closely with those families reshaped her perspective. “Meeting the patients and families affected by this disease has been deeply humbling,” she says. “Their resilience strengthens my determination to do everything I can to end this disease.”
Read more: These great Asian minds are working to protect life and eradicate disease
It was during this period of intensified work in the Philippines that another national challenge came into focus. While serving on Harvard University Board of Overseers, Acuña-Sunshine watched the release of the 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment results with dismay. The Philippines ranked among the lowest globally in literacy and numeracy.
“I remember thinking: how can I sit on the board of a university like Harvard and not do something to help Filipino learners?” she recalls.
The question led her to Khan Academy Philippines, the local arm of the global education platform founded by Sal Khan. Acuña-Sunshine reached out directly, asking whether the organisation would consider allowing the Philippines to become its first international licensee—adapting the platform for the local curriculum.
The result was an ambitious partnership with the Philippine Department of Education to align the platform’s lessons with national standards and make them freely accessible to teachers and students.
At its core, the problem she hoped to address was straightforward but urgent: the country’s widening learning gaps. “We cannot have a country of 117 million people—half of whom are under the age of 25—where so many young people struggle with basic literacy and numeracy,” she says. “That is not just an education issue; it is a national competitiveness issue.”
Education technology, she believes, offers a rare opportunity to address those gaps at scale. Traditional remediation depends heavily on teachers’ limited time. Platforms like Khan Academy allow students to practise foundational skills at their own pace while giving educators real-time insights into where learners are struggling.
Above President and CEO Geraldine Acuña-Sunshine speaks before Khan Academy Philippines' end-of-school-year programme at Jose Rizal University (Photo: courtesy of Khan Academy Philippines)
President and CEO Geraldine Acuña-Sunshine speaks before Khan Academy Philippines' end-of-school-year programme at Jose Rizal University (Photo: courtesy of Khan Academy Philippines)
1 / 1
More recently, artificial intelligence has begun to expand those possibilities. Khan Academy’s AI learning assistant, Khanmigo, acts as both tutor and teaching aide—guiding students step by step through problems rather than providing instant answers. Built with safeguards for classrooms, it also functions in multiple Filipino languages, broadening access for learners across the archipelago.
In effect, technology can democratise something that once belonged primarily to privilege: personalised academic support. “In the past, only families who could afford private tutoring could provide that kind of individualised help,” Acuña-Sunshine says. “Today, we have the opportunity to make that level of personalised learning available to every student.”
Since its launch, the platform has trained thousands of teachers and reached millions of Filipino learners, with early data suggesting improvements in student mastery and engagement.
Read more: Could your child’s best education lie beyond the classroom?
For Acuña-Sunshine, however, the work is less about technological optimism than about human potential. Whether confronting the devastation of XDP or the systemic challenges of education, she returns to the same guiding principle: start somewhere.
“If you have an idea about how to solve a problem, just start,” she says. “It doesn’t have to be perfect. Real progress comes from trying, observing, adjusting and trying again.”
The approach reflects a philosophy shaped equally by urgency and humility. Acuña-Sunshine frequently meets with the patients and students her programmes serve, a deliberate effort to keep the human stakes visible. Data may measure progress, but the stories behind it remain her most powerful motivation.
Looking ahead, both missions are entering pivotal phases. Khan Academy Philippines is preparing to roll out new platform features designed specifically for local classrooms, while XDP research is moving into clinical trials—an unprecedented milestone for a disease once largely ignored by global science.
Her hope is ultimately simple: that future generations may inherit a world where the obstacles she encountered are no longer inevitable.
For education, that means empowering teachers and ensuring every Filipino student can access world-class learning. For XDP, it means something even more profound.
“The greatest legacy would be finding a cure,” she says.
Until that day arrives, Acuña-Sunshine continues to pursue both ambitions with the same conviction that first propelled her into unfamiliar territory years ago: that when people come together with purpose, extraordinary progress becomes possible, and lives can change in ways once thought unimaginable.
Syrah is Tatler Philippines’ Power & Purpose editor, where she spotlights extraordinary journeys shaping the Philippines and Asia. She covers business, innovation, impact, and culture—chasing the people, ideas and forces shaping how we live and think today.
