Saturday, August 18, 2007 ICT strategic plans mulled
PRIME movers of the information communication technology (ICT) industry in Central Philippines are now laying the foundation in response to President Arroyo’s call to promote the cyber-services corridor and create over one million jobs each year.
The Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT)-led cyber-services briefing yesterday gathered stakeholders to discuss opportunities to develop the ICT industry in their respective provinces.
The activity was held at the Cebu Educational Development Foundation for Information Technology Inc. (Cedf-it) office at the Asiatown IT Park, Cebu City.
In the meeting, CICT director for cyber-services group Patricia Abejo encouraged the ICT councils of Regions 6, 7 and 8 — comprised mainly of local government units (LGUs), industry players and the academe — to develop strategic plans that will position the Visayas as a hub for information technology investments.
“It’s up to Central Visayas what part of the cyber-services they want to develop, whether it’s in call centers, medical transcription, software development, animation or business process outsour-cing (BPO),” Abejo said.
Niche
She cited Naga City, which has created a niche as an animation capital.
“We leave it to them (provinces in Central Philippines) to decide,” Abejo said.
Bacolod ICT council vice chairperson Jocelle Sigue said Bacolod City has now constructed four information technology (IT) parks that have attracted spillover investments from Cebu’s call center companies.
Bacolod now has three call centers: Teletech, Teleperformance and Focus Pacific, which have generated a total employment of 3,500.
Sigue said Convergys is expected to establish operations there in the first quarter of 2008.
Racquel Chua, Tacloban regional IT and e-commerce committee member, said the LGU of Tacloban City has began structuring its own ICT plan and has developed the government-owned lot Icot IT Park in Palo, Leyte with Accudata, a non-voice BPO, as it first locator.
She said the province has been considered as a potential expansion site, which is proven by the growing interests of call centers like ICT group and Teletech frequenting Tacloban City.
But while Central Philippines is beginning to catch up infrastructure-wise, the main constraint in developing the cyber- corridor that continually cropped up during the discussion was the lingering problem of manpower supply.
Lack of workers
“We still lack quality human resource, the bulk of the ICT industry,” said Cedf-it executive director Bonifacio Belen.
Even Cebu, which positions itself as an IT hub in Asia and continues to attract ICT players worldwide, is faced with the dilemma of getting quality IT graduates and skills mismatch, he said.
This is why Belen lauded the efforts of neighboring provinces for collaborating with Cebu ICT stakeholders in maintaining a supply of workers.
Lucille Autentico of the Department of Trade and Industry-Bohol admitted that the province still has much to improve in their telecommunications infrastructure to lure ICT investors.
In the meantime, though, she said the academe in Bohol has been supporting job fairs conducted in Cebu by “exporting” their talent and encouraging them to find work opportunities here.
To prepare their students to become globally competitive, she said schools and universities in Bohol have encouraged students to participate in English clubs advocating the use of the English language in daily conversation.
Taking after the Cedf-it model, Autentico is inviting call center companies to also venture into partnerships with schools in Bohol for industry matching.
“We need the regional centers to be well-organized to prepare themselves (for growth in the industry,” Belen said. (MMM)
