Some 200 senior high school students in Cebu will undergo a three-month bootcamp with IBM Philippines to come up with technology-related solutions to address the global concern on climate change.
These senior high science, technology, engineering and mathematics (Stem) students from six public schools in Cebu will be mentored by IBM volunteers based in Cebu.
They will hold a design thinking workshop to help students develop their ideas for their application proposal that can help solve Cebu’s pressing environmental concerns.
The bootcamp is part of the SkillsBuild program, which aims to help primary and secondary students learn about today’s technologies and skills to prepare them for employment in Stem and other careers, as well as increase their competitiveness in the workplaces of the future.
IBM Philippines president and manager Aileen Judan-Jiao said it is important for the country to produce a relevant workforce, especially in today’s digital age.
She, however, said it is not enough to produce talents who have technical skills; they must also excel in soft skills, or character traits and interpersonal skills that characterize a person's relationships with other people.
These are a combination of people skills, social skills, communication skills, character traits, attitudes, career attributes, social intelligence and emotional intelligence quotients that enable people to navigate their environment, work well with others, perform well, and achieve their goals with complementing hard skills.
“The bootcamp will help these students get the relevant skills needed in today’s work environment. You can’t be employable just because you are in Stem strand. You still need to get the relevant skills. We need to make sure that the talents that we build on today will have these skills to prepare them in the real Stem environment,” said Jiao.
“We need to tie these skills altogether with careers to make sure these skills will be tested to solve real world problems,” she added.
Jiao noted no matter how good a coder or programmer should also be articulate.
“We need to teach our students these skills early to fully prepare them,” she said.
The IBM volunteers will teach students how to create successful presentations, as well as skills on application development and deployment using the IBM cloud platform.
The technology bootcamp was launched in Cebu on Nov. 10. Cebu is the pilot area. IBM tapped into the province’s unmatched multi-sector, which has a strong collaboration.
“The talent here is very different. We want to make sure you have your niche area,” said Jiao, adding that they want to capitalize on Cebu’s strong and active multi- sector participation.
The first stage of the camp will expose the students to robotics, design thinking and Android suite. The second stage of the bootcamp will students to apply what they learned in the master classes as well as their own specializations in school (animation, programming, computer systems servicing) to solve real world problems.
The senior high students will also undergo prototyping, where they will create a model of their solution to the real world problem.
Last is the pitching stage, where they will present their model solution to a panel judges for evaluation. The pitching will be held on February.
The bootcamp is spearheaded by IBM Corporate Citizenship, IBM’s corporate social responsibility business unit. / KOC