THE mission we set more than a decade ago continues even in the face of the pandemic. The mission is to create information and communications technology (ICT) enabled jobs in the countryside. This goes to show how resilient and robust the ICT sector is even in the midst of all the challenges we face today.
In 2008, several countryside advocates including myself joined hands to help lift the countryside in an arena where Metro Manila, as usual, has an advantage by being the capital of the Philippines. We formed the National ICT Confederation of the Philippines (NICP) to help government and industry initiatives create digital jobs. Alongside that mission is to push for the institutionalization of a Philippines department for ICT. Eight years later, or in 2016, the law creating the department was passed. Today, the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) under its ICT Industry Development Bureau took the cudgel of continuing the mission through its Digital Cities 2025 Program (DCP). One component of the program is to assist locations which have been identified as Digital Cities create their respective roadmaps covering strategies and goals up to 2025.
Last June 29, after one year since its launch in June 2020, provincial locations outside of Metro Manila set their goals to create a total of over a hundred thousand local jobs in their respective cities by 2025. I am privileged to have assisted in designing the roadmaps together with stakeholders.
Of 31 locations launched as part of the Digital Cities Program in June of last year, nine cities successfully completed their five-year roadmaps and launched them today in a virtual ceremony organized by the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT). These include Balanga, Batangas, General Santos, Iligan, Legazpi, Puerto Proncesa, Taytay Rizal, Tuguegarao, and Zamboanga.
The DICT through its ICT Industry Development Bureau (IIDB) in partnership with the Information Technology and Business Proces Association of the Philippines (IBPAP) and Leechiu Property Consultants (LPC) launched the Digital Cities Program a year ago to support the growth of digital jobs in the countryside.
The program identified 25 locations and 31 cities as digital cities as ideal sites information technology business process management (IT-BPM) companies outside of Metro Manila based on four major metrics -- talent, business enviroment, infrastructure and cost of doing business. The insights and data from stakeholders were gathered through a series of design thinking and strategic planning workshops.
Aside from IT-BPM investments, the local stakeholders were also encouraged to inventory their strenghts in hosting the growth of freelancers, technology entreprenuers, startups and innovators and to promote innovation and use of digital technologies accross all industries in their communities.
To fully support these locations, part of the intervention under the Digital Cities Program is to assist them in creating and designing their respective 5-year roadmaps through various strategic planning, stakeholders and design thinking workshops.
The roadmap will also serve as a comprehensive repository of business information to help investors in assessing a location’s readiness to host IT-BPM companies. The digital cities roadmap is a living document where strategies and milestones shall be continuously updated.
The roadmap features an executive summary about the cities and its background and SWOT analysis about the four metrics. It also contains a discussion about the state of the Philippine’s ICT Industry. According to IBPAP and DICT, the Philippines is a top tier destination for Information Technology – Business Process Management (IT-BPM) services, and is counted among the leaders in the market. In a span of four decades, the sector has achieved significant growth and progress, in terms of expanding its share of the global market. Today, it is the number one destination for voice-related services, and rapidly growing its capability and potential to offer non-voice BPM and IT services to an increasingly broader set of clients worldwide. The Philippine IT-BPM sector has grown rapidly with a potential market revenue growth of 5.5% and headcount growth of 5.0% per annum from 2020 to 2022.
This 2020, DICT, IBPAP, and LPC launched Digital Cities 2025 to further highlight the value of countryside development and the capability of key locations outside Metro Manila to become thriving business districts and viable investment hubs for IT-BPM services. These Digital Cities will hopefully motivate existing players to expand beyond the National Capital Region and encourage new ones to set up shop in the Philippines.
My fervent prayer is to witness these efforts generate thousands of jobs and opportunities for the countryside by 2025.