MVP urges private sector to support Pinoy IT students

MANILA, Philippines — Business titan Manuel V. Pangilinan has called on his colleagues in the private sector to invest in the education of information technology (IT) students to support the country’s digital pivot.

According to Pangilinan, the private sector has to take the lead in driving the digitalization plans of the Philippines, particularly in pouring investments on infrastructure and manpower.

He said the country requires three things to go digital from government processes to day-to-day transactions: connectivity, infrastructure and talents.

Apart from physical assets, Pangilinan said the Philippines has to produce IT graduates who would manage the digital infrastructure of the public and private sectors. As such, he asked his fellow investors to extend scholarships in select schools to support the education of IT students.

“The basic prerequisite is connectivity and infrastructure, which is why we have invested around $10 billion over the past 10 years in the networks of PLDT Inc. and Smart Communications Inc. Above that is the layer of solutions and the applications, so that persons and companies can be more efficient,” Pangilinan said.

“I think the private sector can sponsor scholarships to help universities produce the talents that our country needs,” he added.

The PLDT head also called for support for IT teachers tasked to educate aspiring professionals, such as computer specialists and software engineers.

On its own, PLDT and Smart collaborate with universities in producing IT graduates through the Smart Wireless Engineering Education Program, the first and longest-running industry-academe linkage launched in 2003.

Under the program, PLDT and Smart support the education of IT students among its network of 27 colleges and universities nationwide.

The Pangilinan-led firms provide the critical equipment, immersion experiences, innovation platforms, technical training and extension services.

On the infrastructure side, PLDT plans to spend at least P85 billion for capital expenditures this year, mainly for network upgrades. For one, the telco giant invested more than P7 billion for the Jupiter cable system that triples its international capacity to 60 terabits per second.

As of September, PLDT has also widened its fiber footprint to 1.09 million kilometers made up of 860,000 kilometers in domestic fiber and 231,000 kilometers in international fiber.

Also, the telco has built an additional 1.29 million fiber-to-the-home lines, scaling up its capacity to 5.9 million.