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Thursday, December 23, 2004
Toral: Schools cyberfair and a new child
By Janette Toral
Digital Filipino
CYBERFAIR. On its fourth year, the Philippine Schools Cyberfair was just launched with the theme, “Prepare and Unite.” Students are challenged to create digital Web-based stories that showcase programs and people in their own local communities that look to the future.
Projects should tell a story about the importance of preparing for the future. Students should tell about their own future plans, or conditions and actions that will affect the future of their local community.
The Philippine Schools Cyberfair has gained a lot of ground and supporters.
Today, more and more schools and nongovernment organizations are finding the benefit of bringing information technology (IT) to elementary and high school institutions.
I hope the time will come when all schools nationwide will be able to participate in this competition.
Winning schools can have their teacher sent to a five-day IT Summer Camp this April. Those who have joined in the past were basically after getting a slot in this camp.
In Cebu, unfortunately, not too many school heads see the value of joining this contest. I hope one day they’ll be IT savvy enough to realize what their institutions are missing. The details about the competition are at http://www.digitalfilipino.com.
ONE YEAR OLD. Last Christmas, I decided to launch a members-only site with the DigitalFilipino.com Club. It was a risky move. However, looking at what it has achieved now, it was worth it.
In the past four years, DigitalFilipino.com offered a free community, events and content to its visitors. But as we organized paid events, I noticed that the noisy and freebie attendees were not the ones participating in our “with fee” activities.
As we launched the club, only those who were silent and paying in events joined us. That was the time I decided to apply the Pareto rule—of focusing our efforts on the 20 percent who are contributing 80 percent of our revenue. Today, the club has 138 members, and it is planning greater stuff on our second year.
I guess for those who are in the Internet business, offering something for free is not so bad. But sooner or later, you will have to quantify which ones matter the most to you and will contribute to your long-term sustainability and relevance.
LETTING GO. We also let go of two past initiatives. Infotech at http://www.infotech.com.ph was my very first domain name and e-mail address. This is no longer with us, as I believe others will be able to give more justice to it.
W3O at http://www.w3o.org was discontinued already. Apart from time constraints, bringing women in the IT sector together takes a lot of effort and dedication.
A NEW CHILD. This Christmas, we will launch a new Web project, the Philippine Software Process Improvement Network at http://www.cmmiphilippines.com.
This is in support of our advocacy in pushing for Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) adoption in the Philippines. It is also our Christmas gift to the Internet community, as anyone can join for free and earn as well through its affiliate program.
To sustain itself, a software process improvement e-book is being sold online, and advertisements via Google AdSense appear in the site. Will this click? Perhaps a year from now, I’ll be able to tell. Merry Christmas! Peace!
(janette@digitalfilipino.com.)
(December 23, 2004 issue)
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