Senator Bam Aquino is the youngest senator of the 16th Congress of the Republic of the Philippines. He currently chairs the Senate Committee on Trade, Commerce, and Entrepreneurship and the Senate Committee on Youth. He graduated with summa cum laude honors from the Ateneo de Manila University in 1999, with a degree in Management Engineering. He was also the class valedictorian and student council president. In 2003, Bam became the youngest head of a government agency when, at 25, he was appointed as the Chairperson of the National Youth Commission, the primary national policy-making body for Filipino youth. Bam co-founded the social enterprise The Hapinoy Program, which has since received global awards for its program that helps lift poor Filipinos out of poverty through micro-finance and micro-enterprise support. In 2008, he was awarded a scholarship to the Executive Education Program on Public Policy and Leadership of the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government.