The 4th eQuality Summit for SUC's with this year's Theme: Building the 21st Century SUC was attended by more than 100 SUC Representatives (Presidents, Vice-Presidents and ICT Coordinators) from all over the Philippines from September 29- October 01, 2009. CICT's eQ Program Manager Ms. Antonette Torres and the CICT team provided a well-rounded summit activities for the participants with meaty discussions, worth listening topics, action/ result-oriented workshops for SUC's and their presentations.
Western Philippines University was the host State University for this 4th eQuality Summit at the Legend Hotel, Puerto Princesa City, Palawan. There were sumptous meals and cultural presentations every night sponsored by the Provincial Governor's Office, Mayor's Office and Western Philippines University for each night respectively. Next year's 5th eQuality Summit will be in Visayas.
Apart from the activies, workshops and plenary sessions for the SUC themselves facilitated by CICT, there were a number of Speakers that graced the summit to provide the SUC's with Technology awareness and practical tips in line with their tasks to draw and map out the ICT Roadmap towards "Building the 21st Century SUC.
The speakers dealt on exploring on available materials and initiatives that SUC's can emulate and take on for their respective Colleges and Universities.
Dr. Dr. Francis Sarmiento III of UNDP-IOSN talked about ASEAN+3 Initiatives
Emmanuel C. Lallana, PhD, Chief Executive Officer, ideacorp on Higher Education 2.0: ICT and SUCs in the 21st century
Sistla Venkata Krishna, Director, Oracle Education Initiatives on 21st Century Learning Skills in formal education and Oracle Education
Pei Woan Wong, Manager of Higher Education Solutions (Applications Center of Excellence - Asia Pacific) on Campus Solutions
Angelo Timoteo M. Diaz de Rivera, CICT Commissioner on Accessing the eGovernment Fund for ICT4E Projects
Monchito B. Ibrahim, CICT Commissioner on Service Science Management and Engineering (SSME)
Industry Initiatives and Projects speakers were from:
BPAP, Atty. Jamea Garcia
PSIA, Ms. Bettina Quimson
MTIAPI, Ms. Myla Rose M. Reyes
ACPI, Mr. Michael Kho Lim
GDAP, Ranulf Goss
It was on the 3rd day of the session where 8layer Technologies, Inc represented by its Head-Business and Marketing, Deng Silorio, demonstrated their passion as a team to convey to the SUC's to imbibe what is needed to teach IT with their students. Deng encapsulated in her talk that 8layer Team is like an SUC, continually building on its foundation, and shared experiences of the company as a mentoring team which can be leaned and gleaned by the SUC's themselves. Further, she emphasized that though gadgets (such as mobile phones, computers and the likes) products of Technology are rather impersonal to the user/s and the developer/ maker, the way to teach IT and shape the learning of IT to the students, gaining impact on its essence and usefulness should on the other hand be personal.
Later, 8layer's CTO and Team Kahel Proponent, Mr. Meric B. Mara, introduced and demonstrated KahelOS. Everyone in the room was overwhelmed with the presentation of this Filipino initiative and is not only offered to the Filipinos; free of charge. Meric expounded on the Philosophy of the KahelOS, that it seeks to be ever changing and evolving, collaborative as it believes in the competence and prowess of the Global Open Source Community and that it is a testament that in the IT Arena, The World is Flat.
After their talks, some of the audience approached them right away, congratulated the team and assured that they will use KahelOS in their laboratories and spread the word as well.
Timing is of the essence and KahelOS' visit and introduction to the eQuality Summit conducted by CICT was right on time and in tune with the practical IT needs of the SUC's. Team Kahel distributed free KahelOS CD's so that they can install this at their Computer Laboratories.
The next day, 8layer and Team Kahel together with IOSN, visited Palawan State University and shared to its faculty (most of them coming from Computer Science and Computer Engineering) and their creme of the crop ICT Students how they can achieve to be a world- class institution with the aid of Open Source Technologies. But first of all, encouraged them to write down their ICT Roadmap.
And then the day after, Bodega Site (A Local PC Retailer) met with Team Kahel to introduce KahelOS desktop to its clientele and uphold the anti-piracy campaign.
It was a full week of sharing and learning that awareness and innovation is a step towards Building 21st Century Institutions.