Bisaya Bloggers

As avid WordPress bloggers and developers know very well, WordCamp is the event when it comes to this “state-of-the-art semantic personal publishing platform”. And we are bringing it to the Philippines!

I normally write about blogging stuff over at Blogie Blog, but this post isn’t about blogging. WordCamp, you see, isn’t like the Mindanao Bloggers Summit or the iBlog Summit. WordCamp’s content is usually more technical in nature. As are many open-source software, this powerful CMS is written in PHP, and so this event will cover plenty of ground on this language, as well as XHTML and other similar topics.

(Doesn’t mean, though, that there won’t be any partying!)

The target audience of WordCamp Philippines will be bloggers, naturally. However, we would like to encourage PHP developers to participate, as well as Web weavers (especially those who are very much into XHTML and CSS) and computer graphics designers.

There will be technical sessions on how to make full use of, and extend, WordPress: these will cover plugins and template development. For the more artistically inclined, there will be presentations and demonstrations on how to create themes for WordPress.

The event will be on 25 October 2008. While it’s true that the core organizers are based in Davao, it has been decided by the group to hold WordCamp Philippines 2008 in Metro Manila. (The actual venue has not yet been decided on.)

Too bad for Dabawenyo PHP coders… Although, I do hope that some of them will be able to make it to the event. Hey, it’s still about 5 months away — time to start saving up for the trip to the capital!

For updates on WordCamp, please subscribe to the official blog’s RSS feed.

After a long spell of being away from Davao, leading e-commerce advocate Janette Toral will be back in town for a long-awaited “eyeball” of DigitalFilipino Club members. In particular, the upcoming event will be the Davao E-Commerce and E-Business Owners Meet-Up, on 14 May 2008 (Wednesday).

Here’s the official press release:

The DigitalFilipino.com Club is organizing a networking event where e-business and e-commerce industry players can catch up and exchange updates in the industry.

Who can attend?
Anyone interested in e-commerce or e-business (entrepreneurs, business/technical decision makers, ad agencies, media advertisers, Internet marketers, payment gateway service providers, bloggers, web developers, web designers, Internet and e-commerce trainers / instructors) are more than welcome to attend.

Why attend?
Meeting local e-commerce entrepreneurs, enthusiasts, service providers, online movers and shakers. Let’s network for fun and professional purposes. Talk about developments in the industry. Any excuse to meet like-minded people on a Wednesday late afternoon.

If you’re interested to know more of the digital world and e-commerce, join us! For more information, please send me a message via my contact form.

This 20 & 21 May 2008, a significant event geared towards the Filipino technopreneur is going to happen in Makati City — how I wish it were here in Davao instead! Janette Toral’s DigitalFilipino.com Club, collaborating with Fiera de Manila Inc, is spearheading the conduct of the much-anticipated Social Networking and eBusiness Conference Philipines 2008.

Heavily involved in community-building myself (e.g., MindanaoBloggers.com and the erstwhile IT Society of Davao), I believe I would benefit greatly from the meaty presentations and vigorous discussions that will certainly take place during the Conference.

I have had my small successes in the brave world of networking, but I have had a number of disappointments, too. That is why I’m looking forward to being able to attend this Conference in May: to learn from others. As well, I might just be able to share my experiences with the other participants. It is, after all, a social networking event, which I hope will be brimming with like-minded practitioners.

As a member of the DigitalFilipino.com Club, I’ve been on the receiving end of business deals that have helped push my career forward. It is because of that, and my trust in this organization as an initiator of purposeful educational events, that I would not want to miss the Social Networking and eBusiness Conference.

Up for grabs are invaluable sound bytes of wisdom from the likes of Giovanni Bacareza (Chikka.com), David Jones (Friendster), Jose Carlos Medina (Level-Up Games), Faith Ponte (itzamatch.com), Janette Toral herself, and quite a few more resource speakers.

The Internet of late has become an almost chaotic environment. How do you make sense of it all? If you’re a marketer and eyeing the digital medium, have you considered how best to navigate the tumultuous electronic pathways towards reaching your goals? What is Web2.0 exactly? And just how important is social networking as a marketing tool?

The event is still a month away — plenty of time to prepare for a trip to the capital. Attending the Conference is worth the investment, to be sure.

Social Networking & eBusiness Conference Phils.

• 20 - 21 May 2008
• Hotel Intercontinental, Ayala Ave., Makati City
• For seat reservations & inquiries, please contact:
• Ms. Maricor Tornea or Angie Tuzon, tel.: (2)896-0639, 896-0637, 899-6216
• Email: fiera[at]info.com.ph

The TechnoKapihan session for this month is a no-go. According to ICT Davao Inc.’s Bert Barriga, this monthly powwow will instead be held on the 2nd of April 2008, from 2 to 4 PM. No venue set yet. Whether we’ll have another TechnoKapihan for April, or this rescheduled session will be it, we don’t know yet.

Just to refresh your minds, the TechnoKapihan sa Davao is an informal get-together of IT industry players, supporters and guests. It’s where we can sit down and discuss issues and plans that affect our industry, but in a relaxed setting. For each time, the organizers — ICT Davao and the Davao Chamber — aim to create an atmosphere of openness so that people will be more inclined to share their thoughts. (more…)

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After the 6th Mindanao ICT Congress — and the other IT-related events in Davao City last October — the TechnoKapihan monthly forum is back on track. Here’s a near facsimile of the official announcement.

invites you to

TECHNOKAPIHAN SA DAVAO


               

Broaden your network among Information & Communications Technology players. Meet and match with the right people in the industry. Find out what’s next after the recently-concluded 6th Mindanao ICT Congress last 23-24 October 2007. Or simply share something you think we ought to know.

Be there! Mark that date! You don’t want to miss it!

2:00 PM, 28 November 2007
SM City - Davao

For inquiries contact Angel at telefax: (82)221-7552 or email: aabella@davaochamber.com
Credits

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Next week will be brimming with high-octane activities, all in Davao City. The 6th Mindanao ICT Congress kicks off tomorrow; the 1st BIMP-EAGA ICT Conference will also form part of the MICT Congress; not to mention, the Senior Officials & Ministerial Meeting of the BIMP-EAGA member-nations.

The Internet Café Association of Davao will also hold an event, and there will also be the annual Davao Trade Expo (DATE). And of course, the 1st Mindanao Bloggers Summit on the 27th. That’s what’s been keeping me preoccupied for the past couple of months. Blogging isn’t necessarily an ICT thing, although of course the technical stuff behind blogs is pure information technology. But I digress. (more…)

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Cubepixels Design Studio’s Ray Rubio has done it again! Last year’s Corel-centric event for graphics designers in Davao is now followed-through by this year’s CorelWORLD in Davao 2007. In cooperation with Canadian software giant, Corel, and WordText Systems Inc. (WSI), Cubepixels has organized another successful event for the benefit of Davao’s graphics designers and animators.

From 5 to 6 October 2007 at the NCCC Mall, CorelWORLD featured poster and logo design contests; technical seminars on the latest in graphics design; and talks by Rubio, Corel’s Ram Kumar (Regional Manager, South East Asia and India), the city government c/o Vice-Mayor Sara Duterte and Maikee Aportadera, WordText’s Jane Orejola, and yours truly. (more…)

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During the launch of the 6th MICT Congress last 25 July, Commission on ICT Acting Commissioner Mon Ibrahim presented some challenges to Mindanao’s economic development. One of which is the challenge of improving Mindanao’s negative image. Ibrahim said that overcoming this obstacle will result in better opportunities for Mindanao’s I.T. industry to flourish.

Well, one very effective way to address this need is to have more and more people writing about Mindanao. The best medium for this is the Internet. And the best tool the blog.

The Mindanao Bloggers Summit, which will be held during the MICT Congress this October, has a very apt theme: “Spotlight Mindanao: Blogging for Culture, Identity and Understanding“. The fundamental idea behind the Summit is to promote the use of blogs as a powerful tool for bringing out to the world the true image of Mindanao. Also, the Summit aims to foster understanding among the various peoples and cultures in Mindanao. (more…)

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The 6th Mindanao ICT Congress, which will be held on 23 & 24 October 2007, was formally launched yesterday in simple ceremonies. This year’s host, the Davao City Chamber of Commerce & Industry, is teamed up with the city’s umbrella oranization of I.T. associations, ICT Davao Inc. If I’m not mistaken, this is the first time that the MICT is being spearheaded (at least in part) by the actual stakeholders of the I.T. industry.

The MICT Congress franchise is owned by the Mindanao Business Council (MBC), and it awards the privilege to host the event to a member Chamber each year. The Davao Chamber hosted the first 2 congresses, and once more this year.

What’s unique again in MICT’07 is the holding of the BIMP-Eaga ICT Conference for the very first time. The MBC, through the auspices of the Mindanao Economic Development Council (Medco), was able to convince our opposite numbers in Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia to join forces with us this year to help us give deeper meaning to the MICT’s theme: “ICT Beyond Borders“.

The entities directly involved in the MICT are the following: MBC, the Davao Chamber, ICT Davao Inc, Medco, and the BIMP-Eaga Business Council. The Department of Trade & Industry - Region 11 and the city government of Davao are also lending their support towards a successful 6th MICT Congress. (more…)

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The first time I wrote about the upcoming 6th Mindanao ICT Congress was, I believe, in early May of this year. Soon after, the planning for this major undertaking was begun, albeit rather lethargically, due to coordination concerns among the three MICT stakeholders. This year, two organizations have been awarded the franchise by the Mindanao Business Council (which owns the event): the Davao City Chamber of Commerce & Industry, and ICT Davao Inc.

During the initial two months, the schedule for the MICT had finally been set, from 23 to 24 October 2007. Events attached to the Congress were scheduled around those dates; the Mindanao Bloggers Summit, for example, was supposed to be held on the 27th. Recently, however, the MICT technical working group (TWG) made a sweeping decision to move the Congress a week early, this time from 19 to 21 October, and even directed the organizers of the Mindanao Bloggers Summit to move this event to the 20th. (more…)

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On 3 November 2006, the Davao City mayor’s office issued an executive order constituting an information and communications technology task force. Executive Order No. 16 is an offshoot of the proposal by Councilor Pilar Braga to create the ICT Task Force, which is now mandated to create a road map of the city’s I.T. industry. That is, to provide the local government unit with a much-needed development plan.

With the sudden increase in I.T. investments in Davao, the city government has finally adopted a more serious stance vis-à-vis the I.T. industry. In the past, Davao’s elected officials merely paid lip service to the wonders of information technology — having used the word “wonder” makes it rather clear that the government wasn’t yet all that clued-up, doesn’t it? While EO16 deserves our gratitude, we in the private sector see it as a knee-jerk reaction: not a well-planned strategy to address the burgeoning new industry. Nevertheless, the EO does have its merits, and the task force appears to be ready for action.

(more…)

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It was an interesting and eye-opening meeting I had with an Aussie and a Kiwi at the DTI-11 yesterday. The Australian, Quentin Kilian, and the New Zealander, Craig Hubbard, were in town to do a public demonstration of the BIMP-Eaga Business Portal. BIMP-Eaga… Australia?? Let me elaborate.

(more…)

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As Davao Chamber trustee Andre Fournier has pointed out, the Techno Kapehan has become a mainstay in Davao’s ICT arena. Initiated by the DCCCII, the Techno Kapehan is a once-a-month informal gathering of the city’s industry associations, businessmen, government officials and the media. This month’s session (23 May 2007) was hosted by NCCC Mall.

(more…)

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Bonifacio Belen, organizing committee chairman, was in town last Wednesday for the Davao leg of the CEBU ICT 2007 Roadshow. He’d been to Iloilo, Cagayan de Oro and other cities in order to invite and encourage I.T. organizations and companies to participate. During the Davao Roadshow, Belen gave a very rousing presentation of the Philippine I.T. industry’s present situation, vis-à-vis our Asian neighbors’.

According to Belen, the Fortune 500 magazine ranks the Philippines second only to India in terms of I.T. industry growth and development. Considering our comparative geographical size and population, this is indeed a remarkable piece of statistic. If Cebu’s local I.T. industry is any indication, our country’s being #2 is indeed credible.

The Philippine strength is in our highly-skilled, available and trainable manpower — and Davao contributes to this quite significantly. Knowing this, Davao’s own I.T. industry would do well to follow Cebu’s example, especially in the model of the Cebu Educational Development Foundation for Information Technology (CEDF-it).

This Foundation has successfully synergized industry and academe, along with government, to ensure the future of the I.T. industry. And that future, as Belen succinctly pointed out, lies in human resources.

CEDF-it worked — and is now quite well-established — because of one simple fact: ALL key players cooperated. Belen, who is CEDF-it managing director, related how Cebu’s industry leaders, heads of universities and high-level representatives of government agencies themselves hunkered down to plan, create and sustain the Foundation. Belen was referring to the president of NEC Philippines, the dean of San Carlos University, even the mayor of Cebu City, among others.

Can this be accomplished in Davao? I sincerely pray that the past failed efforts at getting the local industry organized isn’t the answer. Truth be told, an endeavor along the lines of CEDF-it was supposed to have been initiated here several years ago. But in-fighting and politicking among those who were supposed to be in fact collaborating stopped it dead in its tracks.

Let’s shift our focus to the present and to the newly-formed umbrella organization, ICT Davao Inc. It is fortunate that the two strong academic associations, the Philippine Society of IT Educators and Council of Deans in IT Education, are enthusiastic members. Will it be successful in rolling out a long-term program similar to CEDF-it’s? Will it outlive its failure of a predecessor and manage to effectively represent and lead Davao’s I.T. industry?

What of the Mindanao ICT Summit? This column will endeavor to shed light on the developments of this year’s MICT, which — if the plan holds — will be held in Davao sometime in October 2007.

This coming June 2007, Cebu will have become one of the major hotspots of I.T. development in Asia. Already, it is the site of major international contact center operators; it has a notable presence of animation and software developers; and it boasts of the most successful I.T. alliance of industry and academe in the country, among others.

What will put Cebu firmly on the world’s I.T. map, however, is the C.E.BU. ICT 2007 International Conference & Exhibition. This monumental event will be held in Metro Cebu from 26 to 28 June 2007. To give you a bird’s-eye view of the event’s overarching objective, it is subtitled “The Asian Hubs in the Service of the Global ICT Industry“. And the battle cry is: “Pioneering Landmark ICT Collaboration in Asia“.

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