DTI eyeing to establish ICT accreditation body

CEBU, Philippines - The Department of Trade and Industry Central Visayas initiates a move to strengthen the local software industry in the region, specifically Cebu, which has a rich pool of talented geeks.

DTI-7 regional director Asteria Caberte announced that aside from pushing the industry-academe linkage, an accreditation body for local software developers and the ICT sector in general is being considered in order to put local ICT players to the international value chain.

Caberte said while there are good software products developed by local talents in Cebu, and other parts of the region, "it is sad to know that our local industries [companies] are not using them."

In fact, she said most companies instead are using the expensive software products developed by companies from other countries, while multinational companies are mostly employing Filipino software developers.

A concrete plan will be drawn up soon as DTI-7 will accelerate this move to strengthen the local ICT sector, particularly the software development sector in coordination with different government agencies as well as the private sector.

The end goal is to make Filipino developers known not only in the country but also globally.

Part of the plan is to link with the Commission on Higher Education to implement updated standards in ICT education and take serious attention in producing and recognizing Filipino talents in software development.

Earlier, global technology entrepreneur Winston Damarillo urged the academe to improve their programs to further support the budding local software development sector in Cebu.

Damarillo said Cebu has great potential to leverage in the software development, particularly in mobile and web development applications and that talents should also be given support to encourage them to launch their brilliant ideas in the commercial market.

What is happening now, Damarillo observed is that most good talents are working for multinational companies, although this is not bad, but if Cebu were to position itself as the next Silicon Valley, it has to develop its own strong identity by producing innovations that will credit the Cebuano talents.

Damarillo believes that the Philippines in general is ready to compete in the software development dimension in technology, only that support for start-up software developers and engineers should be further strengthened.  (FREEMAN)