Koree Monteloyola

Recommendations

The following are the factors that the Philippine government should be aware of in order for the country to reach its targets in the ICT roadmap. In a quarterly survey¹⁷ conducted by BPAP about the factors that limits the growth of ICT in the Philippines the following results were delivered:

1. Fifty-one percent of respondents indicated that English proficiency has a “very significant impact” on their organizations’ ability to grow. ¹⁷
2. On a scale of one to seven with seven indicating “negative image of Philippines is a significant issue,” 46% of respondents responded in a range of five to six, with 18 percent indicating negative image is a significant issue when recruiting clients. ¹⁷
3. 69%, indicated that a positive perception of the Philippines has a somewhat significant to significant impact on client recruitment, responding in the range of five to seven. ¹⁷
4. The top three responses on what the Philippines should improve are overall country image (85%), political stability (80%), and English proficiency (55%).¹⁷
5. The top three responses on what the Philippines should do to improve its image were: 1) undertake a public relations program (75%); 2) participate in major international trade shows (68%); and, 3) provide a better online presence (65%).¹⁷

Conclusion

I believe that if the government can become more stable it would bear good results for its people, especially for the business sector. My only concern regarding the creation of DICT is (as always) the qualifications of the people who are going to manage this department in the future. It would be useless if the DICT would be created and be given budgets but in the end there would be mishandling of funds. Somehow I agree with Pres. NoyNoy’s view on the creation of DICT.

I have to laud BPAP’s efforts on uplifting the ICT in the Philippines. Their plans and research really reaches the core of the problems in the Philippines, and it shows that the technical side is the least of the problem. The Philippines weakness could also be its strength (and vice versa). The initiative should come from the government.

I’m glad that the Philippines became the world’s #1 in BPO. We can conclude that English proficiency plays a major role in our ICT growth. I hope that we can reach all the targets set in the ICT roadmap, because I believe in the skills and talents of Filipinos. If the right people work together, everything is possible.

Continue Reading:

1. ICT in the Philippines during the Aquino Administration (part 1)
2. ICT in the Philippines during the Aquino Administration (part 2)
3. ICT in the Philippines during the Aquino Administration (part 3)
4. ICT in the Philippines during the Aquino Administration (part 4)

ICT Roadmap of Philippines, Japan and Singapore

If we were to compare the ICT roadmap of the Philippines to Japan and Singapore, it is without doubt that ours is far from their ICT visions. Japan and Singapore are considered to be 1st world countries, thus they are highly capable in producing impressive and high-tech ICT infrastructures. Ours mirrors the primary problem that a 3rd world usually suffers – unemployment. Most of the proposals and schemes in the Philippine IT-BPO Road Map 2011-2016¹⁴ focus on talent or skill development. The roadmap identifies 5 priorities of BPAP:

• Set driving standards and accreditation to ensure a better match between the skills of graduates with the requirements of industry;
• Promote more aggressive internal marketing of the industry to the local talent pool
• Strengthen awareness of the Philippine value proposition in IT, voice and non-voice BPO services in existing and new markets;
• Advocate high impact public policies
• Strengthen our Public-Private Partnership with government to fund key programs such as study-to-work training programs.

Philippine IT-BPO Road Map 2011-2016 suggests that IT-BPO and GIC industry annual revenues could more than double from $9 billion in 2010 to $25 billion in 2016.¹⁴ BPAP and the government remain optimistic with their set targets. Thanks to the Philippines high English literacy rate, the Philippines enjoys a good share in the global BPO industry.

Japan: ICT Hatoyama Plan¹⁵

If we are going to observe Japan’s ICT roadmap, we can tell that they are a rich country, since their problems and plans are about maintaining and/or upgrading their current technology it reflects the challenges they have in their society which is far less disturbing than the Philippines.
The plan aims to double ICT industries over the medium term through 2015-2020 (creating new markets of as much as 100 trillion yen). The specific policies in their ICT roadmap are:

• Create safe and secure networks
• Nurture highly-skilled ICT human resource
• Development and implementation of ubiquitous Greent ICT
• Enhancing the international competitiveness of ICT industries
• Nurture and reinforce creative industries
• Build advanced digital networks

These six policies would build an infrastructure supporting latent potential of Japan’s industry, government and regional communities.

Singapore: Intelligent Nation (iN2015) Masterplan

iN2015 was launched in 2006. Singapore has consistently performed well in international infocomm and e-Government rankings.  Recently, the World Economic Forum ranked Singapore second in its Global Information Technology Report 2009-2010 which measured the impact of ICT on the development process and the competitiveness of nations.  For the second year running, Singapore also topped the Waseda University World e-Government Ranking, which monitors and analyses the development of e-Government worldwide.¹⁶

Singapore’s strategy with in2015¹⁶

• To establish an ultra-high speed, pervasive, intelligent and trusted infocomm infrastructure
• To develop a globally competitive infocomm industry
• To develop an infocomm-savvy workforce and globally competitive infocomm manpower
• To spearhead the transformation of key economic sectors, government and society through more sophisticated and innovative use of infocomm.

Desired outcomes¹⁶

• Enriched lives through infocomm
• Enhanced economic competitiveness and innovation through infocomm
• Increased growth and competitiveness of the infocomm industry

Goals with in2015¹⁶

• To be #1 in the world in harnessing infocomm to add value to the economy and society
• To realise a 2-fold increase in the value-add of the infocomm industry to S$26 billion
• To realise a 3-fold increase in infocomm export revenue to S$60 billion
• To create 80,000 additional jobs
• To achieve 90 per cent broadband usage in all homes
• To achieve 100 per cent computer ownership in homes with school-going children

Continue Reading:

1. ICT in the Philippines during the Aquino Administration (part 1)
2. ICT in the Philippines during the Aquino Administration (part 2)
3. ICT in the Philippines during the Aquino Administration (part 3)
4. ICT in the Philippines during the Aquino Administration (part 4)

Information and Communications Technology (ICT) plays a major role in the economic and social development of a country. ICT focuses on the convergence of multimedia, communication and computer networks into a unified system to deliver results wherein humans can benefit in terms of information accessibility, data processing, real-time communication and financial facets. The acronym ICT is frequently used with the word “roadmap” (ICT roadmap).  An ICT roadmap is a plan formed by an organization where in it contains the technological issues that they have to resolve and how they are going to resolve it. It also states the organization’s goals and projections and what are their plans to achieve it.

In this paper, I want to give the reader an idea of the current state of the ICT in the Philippines under the Aquino administration, and compared to other Asian countries how do we rate or evaluate our ICT roadmap?

For this task it is logical for us to have an understanding of the status of ICT and the government agencies involved just before the Aquino administration started. After which I’m going to outline the recent and future ICT projects and plans of the Philippine government and private sectors concerned.

From Pres. Ramos to Pres. Arroyo

On May 2009 an article by Roberto R. Romulo was published in Philippine Star entitled, ”Philippine ICT after GMA”.¹ In this article Romulo voices his concern about the approval and creation of the Department of Information and Communication Technoloy (DICT) several times. It also talks about the evolution of ICT in the Philippines from President Ramos to President Joseph Estrada and President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. Each of these leaders had their own ICT plans, but based on Romulo’s article it seems that Pres. Arroyo had the most stable or competent ICT plan and government agency, which is the Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT)².

CICT

The Commission on Information and Communications Technology was formed on January 2004 and its preceding agency was Information Technology and Electronic Commerce Council (ITECC) formed during Pres. Estrada. Its mandate as stated in the CICT’s official website is:

“The Commission shall be the primary policy, planning, coordinating, implementing, regulating, and administrative entity of the executive branch of Government that will promote, develop, and regulate integrated and strategic ICT systems and reliable and cost-efficient communication facilities and services. In fulfilling its mandate”³

The CICT formulated the Philippine ICT Roadmap, because of this I would say that the IT industry in the Philippines has taken another form under Pres. Arroyo. But like, past agencies which were merged to another department or completely abolished when a president’s term ends in our country, CICT was merged to the Department of Science and Technology. On June 23, 2011. Pres. Aquino signed Executive Order No. 47⁴

E.O. 47 Summary:

“Reorganizing, Renaming And Transferring The Commission On Information And Communications Technology And Its Attached Agencies To The Department Of Science And Technology, Directing The Implementation Thereof And For Other Purposes”

In the Philippine law it is stated that all science and technological activities by the government should be assigned to DOST.⁵ Moreover the department assured CICT for their full support, and reiterated that since DOST has more established connections with various government, educational and private sectors in the country CICT would be more competent.

Continue Reading:

1. ICT in the Philippines during the Aquino Administration (part 1)
2. ICT in the Philippines during the Aquino Administration (part 2)
3. ICT in the Philippines during the Aquino Administration (part 3)
4. ICT in the Philippines during the Aquino Administration (part 4)

I was invited by my former college professor (sir Rico Teodoro) to be a guest speaker to an Android Technology seminar for a small group of students at Adamson University (Metro Manila, Philippines). It was held this afternoon.

One of the fun parts was when I switched to this slide :)

Yup, I put my design there so everyone (in the seminar) can see its full "projected" glory. I know, I know it was a shameless plug. hehe

These are just some of the things that I discussed during the seminar:

- General information about Android (History, Features, Security,Design)

- Setting the general environment configuration for Android development (System Requirements, Android SDK, Android Virtual Device, Eclipse, ADT)

- Discussing HelloWorld app, installing and testing in an AVD or emulator

- Exporting an Android project

- Creating a keystore

- Creating the HelloWorld.apk file

- Using adb to see the devices

- Installing the HelloWorld.apk file to the emulator and Samsung Galaxy Tab.

We ran out of time to discuss other Android projects, and I ended the seminar with a statement made by Richard Stallman about supporting Android to protect our privacy.

I hope I was able to deliver what they needed to start coding.

Thanks to sir Rico for giving me the chance to share what I know. God Bless.

This is a simple Flash animation I created for my (UPOU) DEVCOM 207 course last semester.

The video contains information about the roles of women in the history of computers, current statistics and possible reasons on the status or participation of women in IT and how to encourage women to become computer programmers.

Gender is not an issue if you really want to pursue a career in (information) technology or other related fields.

Reference: Wikipedia