Flying High 2010

The year was 1992, the venue: Camp Aguinaldo Golf Club. Instead of coming together for golf, the leaders of the IT industry had gathered for a planning workshop. The president of the Philippine Computer Society (PCS) was there. So were the presidents of the IT Association of the Philippines (ITAP), the Computer Dealers and Distributors of the Philippines (COMDDAP), and a slew of other IT user and supplier organizations such as GO-IT (Government Organizations for IT), PADEC (Philippine Association of Data Encoding Corporations), Genesys, Share Guide, and others. That year, I was the president of the Unix Users Club of the Philippines (UUCP), so I was invited too.

We had gathered together to form the IT Foundation of the Philippines (ITFP) and to elect our founding batch of officers - I was elected Secretary! We agreed to speak with one voice in advocating the interests of our industry. One of the actions we agreed on that weekend was to propose legislation to create a cabinet-level post for ICT. Those were exciting times! We were creating the future!

Fast forward to today. Déjà vu...

The year is 2005, the venue: Tagaytay Highlands Golf Club. Instead of coming together for golf, the leaders of the IT industry had gathered for a planning workshop. The incoming and outgoing presidents of the PCS were there. So were the presidents of ITFP, PSIA (Philippine Software Industry Association), PICS (Philippine Internet Commerce Society), ISSSP (Information Systems Security Society of the Philippines), the Government CIO Forum, and PADEC. As well as the executive directors of ASID (the Association of Solution Integrators in Davao), CebuSoft, and Phil-NITS (the Philippine National IT Standards Foundation).

Plus representatives from the private sector, academe (La Salle, Ateneo, Mapua, CEDFIT) and government (Senate, Congress, Supreme Court, BIR, COA, DBP, PMS, TESDA, Dep Ed, and CICT). We had sacrificed a weekend away from our families in order to draft a vision and strategy for the philippine software industry.... once again, we are creating the future!

Below are photos of the breakout groups hard at work... i.e. working hard to ignore the beautiful surroundings of Tagaytay Highlands! 8-)

(Click on each photo for a full-screen version.)


(L to R: Maan Tolentino/PICS, Adreliza Cala/BIR, the author, Janette Toral/Senate, Menchie Aragon/PSIA, George Kintanar/Congress)


(L to R: Sam Jacoba/Microsoft, Mon Ibrahim/PCS, the author, Jun Malacaman/ITFP, Cesar Tolentino/XMG, Chris Stolk/Salus, Clarisse Sabando/CPL)


(L to R: Elmar Gomez/Mobile Arts, Toy Paralisan/CebuSoft, Michelle Casio/Mapua IT Center, the author, Ivan Uy/Supreme Court, Caslon Chua/DLSU, Gina Duminy/IT Pros)


(L to R: Bing van Tooren/PCS, Fred Kintanar/CEDFIT, the author, Jeffery Sy/Trend Micro, Bebette Ventura/CPI)


(L to R: Oliver Robillo/ASID, Carmela Perez/COA, Edna Belleza/PMS, the author, Andrew Guitarte/DBP-DCI, Hans Chua/Ateneo Java Wireless Center)

What started several months ago on February 14 is now coming to fruition as "Flying High: Philippine Software 2010", a strategic vision for the Philippine Software Industry. The team is currently hard at work to produce a final report to be submitted to Her Excellency President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on June 22, at the Cebu ICT Expo. These are exciting times!


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