Tuesday, May 20, 2008 Scholarships mulled at Korean IT schools
ASIDE from job generation, the country’s information and communication technology (ICT) industry should also “nurture” the creation of high-end technology to make it to the “next level.”
To do this, a Cebu-based foundation is looking into granting scholarships for Cebuano students to study in the best information technology schools in Korea.
The Cebu Educational Development Foundation for Information Technology (Cedf-it) will also look into the possibility of having an exchange of professors program between Korean universities and Cedf-it member schools.
Cedf-it executive director Bonifacio Belen said this development was a result of a study tour and mission he attended in Korea last month.
“You will be surprised at the number of scholarship grants available in Korea,” he told Sun.Star Cebu in a phone interview yesterday.
He added that although there are many scholarship grants, they remain untapped by Filipinos.
Initially, Kwangwoon University in Korea and Cedf-it have already discussed how to go about the program and target signing a memorandum of agreement by June, in time for the first Cebu Open Source Summit.
At present, Cedf-it is drafting and finalizing the details of the program, which extends scholarship grants for information technology (IT) undergraduate and graduate courses.
Government
Cedf-it will also study how government agencies like the Department of Science and Technology can become a part of the program.
While India and China topped the number of IT professionals with graduate degrees, Belen said Cebu may have less than 10. This low figure, he said, is the reason why IT graduates in the country remain labor sub-contractors and not inventors.
He added that the country’s neighbors, like Singapore and South Korea, have worked hard to provide for the key ingredients necessary to deepen the quality of ICT practitioners in their countries.
“We are very good in the services industry. But when it comes to new technology or new products, we are not very focused on them,” he said.
Joining summit
A delegation from Kwangwoon University, including the university’s president, and Haansoft Corp. are coming to attend the open source summit, said Belen.
Aside from Belen, the study tour and mission was also participated in by engineer Jose Bigornia, president and chief executive officer of the Central Visayas Information Sharing Network, Roberto Jesus Suson, president and chief executive officer of Next Ix Inc., Angel Natividad, president of STI College in Zamboanga, Myrna Natividad, STI College–Zamboanga chief operating officer, and Angela Monette Natividad, finance manager for STI College–Zamboanga. (DME)
