NOTING an opportunity to promote Information Technology (IT) in the city, the ICT Business Council, together with the City Government of Cagayan de Oro, has organized the first digital arts fest on November 24 to 25.
The Oro Digi Arts Fest consisted of the two-day Creative Digital Output Challenge to be held in the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) training center and a Digital Illustration Workshop on November 25 at Centrio Ayala Mall.
The workshop will be handled by a speaker from the Cebu Illustrators Guild, who has an experience in working in Bigfoot, an international company studio in Cebu, and was able to work with Marvel and DC comics.
"We see this initiative as a support to what we call now the creative industry which is also known as sunrise industry. Even the DTI [Department of Trade and Industry] is also putting up programs to support this industry," Eileen San Juan, City Investments and Promotions officer, said.
Boosting the creative industry in the city, according to San Juan, does not only help the Kagay-anons digital artists and animators to find some place to show their talents but also it will open up a path for new investments coming in the city.
"Cagayan de Oro, we understand, has a lot of talents and we want to develop this in the hope that we will also have investments coming in to support these talents. And so, businesses will open here and studios will open here in Cagayan de Oro to house these talents," San Juan said.
Jonathan Arvin Adolfo, executive director of CDO ICT Business Council, for his part, has expressed gratitude to the City Government for supporting such an event, saying that most of the contests or competitions for digital arts and animations only happen in the industry level.
"It’s good that the City is pushing this and we are so grateful because of the fact that ICT is one of the priority areas of the city," Adolfo said.
Adolfo also shared the report from the IT Business Process Association of the Philippines, wherein it stated that several IT-related services will boom in the next six years.
"This includes, in this particular industry, animation and game development sectors, specifically on 2D and 3D, authenticated reality and VR (virtual reality) and the gamification of everything that is around us, including education, government services, other forms of services that we give to our constituents and even as a business model from the industry perspective," Adolfo said.
The conduct of the Oro Digi Arts Fest is one of the ICT Business Council and the City Government's strategy to jumpstart the animation industry in Cagayan de Oro City, he added.
"We try to jumpstart because the city can also aim for targeting those industries aside from raising the standards for the BPO industry here in Cagayan de Oro City. We also try to raise our level of skills in terms of the creative industry," the executive director of the ICT Business Council said.
Adolfo also shared that through the Creative Digital Output Challenge, those existing talented animators and digital artists will be able to get out of their comfort zone, try to join and be known.
Apart from digital arts fest, the ICT Business Council has previously organized workshops to introduce digital arts and animation to the public.
"We try to, as much as possible, establish a good ecosystem here in Cagayan de Oro to be able to aid them [animators and those who are in the creative industry] to level up their skills and be productive in this particular industry," Adolfo said.