‘Use Web to bridge communities’

UNLEASH your creativity and help spread the web development as a tool in bridging communities, Google representatives told Cebuanos during a forum last Friday.

“There are raw talents in the Philippines. It’s just a matter of developing the ideas and creating something from these ideas,” said Google developer relations technical program manager Christine Songco.

"The Manny Pacquiao Blog". Click here for stories and updates on the Filipino boxing champ.

Songco and Google Japan software engineer Dan de Lima were in Cebu last Friday to discuss Google and open source applications with students and web developers in Cebu. The forum was held at the University of the Philippines Visayas College Campus.

Songco said the forum aimed to inspire students and potential web developers to make use of technology and come up with applications that are useful to the community, through the help of Google applications and open source.

Solutions

“Google is heavily investing on tools for application development because the more applications we can develop, the more it makes the Web better and the more people will use it,” said Lima.

Songco said these applications help create solutions to problems. She mentioned the map update application developed by Lima last year, which helped locate victims for rescue operations during typhoon Ondoy. “This is one example of an application we could contribute to the community,” she said.

Michi Barcelon of Ayala Technology Business Incubation said the forum also encouraged developers to develop their talents and scale up their ideas and turn it into an enterprise application for a particular group.

“In this way, people no longer have to leave the country to find jobs,” Barcelon said.

Ayala Technology Business Incubation (TBI) partnered with Google to tap potential developers in Cebu. Barcelon said Ayala TBI will assist start-ups bring their applications to the market.

The forum was organized by Google, UP Cebu, Department of Science and Technology Business Incubator, GTUG – Cebu, Developers Connect (DevCon), Philippine Emerging Start-Ups Open, Brain Gain Network and Ayala TBI.

The innovation forum is one of the regular tech forums that Ayala TBI has been holding in Makati and regional centers in the country since 2007.