IBM Lends IT and Business expertise to COMTEQ

Top experts from IT giant, International Business Machines (IBM), and a management team from COMTEQ Computer and Business College recently went through a transformative four-week program that brought the teaching of IT at Comteq to the highest level.

The IBM experts visited the country to foster the growth of the information technology community in the Philippines as part of the company’s global corporate social responsibility (CSR) program. They are all brilliantly engaged in a spectrum of disciplines in the markets where IBM is competing in globally.

“We initially thought we were justified in thinking that our competitive edge as an IT institution was already razor-sharp due to the college’s stellar track record in winning IT competitions,” Comteq Deputy Administrator Ansbert Joaquin said.

“But the IBM volunteers have awakened us to the fact that there are knowledge-areas in the field of IT that we have yet to explore and conquer, which our college is uniquely positioned to accomplish to better serve our students,” Joaquin admitted.

Comteq has consistently been winning local and national skills competitions because of the quality of its students some of whom find themselves employed by prestigious companies even before they graduate.

The school was chosen by the Subic Bay Chamber of Commerce as the learning institution operating in the Subic Bay Freeport Zone, Olongapo city, and the province of Zambales that possesses the highest yield-potential to benefit from the CSR program and help spread IBM’s expertise in the community.

Project output

Douglas Del Prete, Global Industry Solutions senior consultant for IBM from Massachusetts in the United States, provided Comteq with a road map to enhance its curriculum so that the knowledge-base and the skill-sets being imparted by the faculty to its students are at par with the most prized worker assets in the global IT sector.

Del Prete said that the “hot skills” program that is now embedded in Comteq College’s curriculum will “enable students enrolled here to compete with other students anywhere in the world.“

“We made sure that Comteq’s curriculums are more aligned in the regional, national, and global trends in IT. This way, the expertise that students will obtain here on their way to getting jobs after they graduate, comprises the most valued skills in the industry. This should translate to satisfactory and lucrative careers for them later,” he said.

In a symposium about the latest trends in IT attended by hundreds of high school and college IT students, Del Prete said “schools in the area will become catalysts in transforming the Subic Bay Freeport Zone into “a mighty economic engine“ by arming its students with the hot skills that are prized in the industry.

“I see a lot of potential here. But it is going to need knowledgeable people to realize that potential and turn it into something valuable. And that's why itis important that the learning institutions in this area are always engaged in enhancing the skills of its students that are important to industry, he said.

“Comteq is now several steps ahead of the competition in this regard,” Del Prete stressed.

Another expert, YiRen “Judy” Yuan, IBM User Experience Engineer, from Shanghai, China, meanwhile, helped craft Comteq’s strategic plans for the next five years.

She was joined by Jens Teichelmann, Director of asset recovery service for IBM, from Stuttgart, Germany who shared his expertise in sales, marketing and finance. Together, they also worked with the Comteq staff in developing the college’s marketing program.

Yuan said that that the IBM group which consisted of “IBM’s best performing and high-potential employees” hoped to have succeeded in leaving a lasting legacy to the community through Comteq.

“As much as we have shared our knowledge and our expertise to Comteq, we hope that what we have done here benefits as many persons as possible and improves their lot in life through education,” she said.

Teichelmann agreed and said he is confident that the entire community will benefit from the program as well. “The local community will also be able to build its capacity for IT through IBM's expertise,” he explained.

“In fact, they are the foremost beneficiary of the program since most of the students who enroll in Comteq are part of the communities that surround the Freeport Zone,” he added.

Another IBM volunteer from Columbia, Camilo Roxas, who was actually assigned at the tourism office of Olongapo City, also shared his skills to selected Comteq students in web development.

Cutting edge

The IBMers that formed the team in Subic came from India, China, Germany, Canada, U.S, Columbia and Costa Rica. They were chosen from a pool of over 400, 000 workers scattered throughout the globe. Some of them were assigned to develop the strategic plan for the Subic Bay Freeport Zone.

“Together, our friends from IBM have brought Comteq to the cutting edge of the IT industry in terms of our curriculum and strategic management initiatives,” Joaquin said at the end of the four-week program.

“The volunteers really left us with a lot of work to do as they have set us in the direction that will shape the course of this college’s future,” Joaquin said.

“And it will be mainly due to their (IBM experts’) inspiration and their guidance that our students shall reap the benefits of IBM’s culture -- that of sharing and excellence in the field of IT,” he added.

COMTEQ creates award-winning website

Once again, COMTEQ College showed proof of its excellence in design and development in the field of IT by creating the website of Zambales Congresswoman Mitos Magsaysay that won the Best Website Award for Celebrities and Personalities Category in the 11^th Philippine Web Awards.

The aforementioned website was created in partnership with another exceptional institution, the Victa Solutions. The development team of the Mitos Magsaysay Website is composed of John Carlo Nova (President, Victa Solutions), Marcus Reyes (VP for Operations, Victa), Jov Mark Felarca (IT-TESDC Head, COMTEQ), Yam Villena (Project Manager, Victa), Anjo Catindig and Ryan Macaspac (COMTEQ instructors), and Paul Jayme and Ederson Lim (COMTEQ students).

 

The development team was surprised when they were announced as winner as they were competing against very impressive sites in the Celebrities Category. However, COMTEQ Administrator Ansbert Joaquin said that this did not surprise him because it is his belief that COMTEQ staff and students truly have the intelligence and creative and technical skills to compete with much bigger and stronger adversaries.

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Related Article:
Subic ICT talents raring for the big time 
by Henry Empeño - Business Mirror

SUBIC BAY FREE PORT—While Subic Bay remains outside the initial development spheres for the budding Philippine information and communications technology (ICT) industry, the area has been producing a growing talent pool that is now raring for recognition in various fields of the knowledge-based industry.

Industry experts in Subic told the BusinessMirror in exclusive interviews recently that local IT professionals have become proficient over the years and could now compete with some of the country’s best.

“Name it—systems development, database management, biometric solutions, web design, multimedia development, outsourcing and consulting —and the locals can do it,” said John Carlo Nova, president and chief executive officer of Victa Solutions, an IT firm based in Olongapo City that won an award for best website in the 11th Philippine Web Awards held in February.

The web site www.mistosmagsaysay.org, which was designed for Zambales First District Rep. Mitos Magsaysay, won in the celebrities and personalities category, besting the official web sites of Sen. Aquilino Pimentel Jr. and broadcast journalist Daniel Razon.

“The Subic Bay area is teeming with capable and talented individuals, and should some investor put up any ICT/BPO/KPO business in the locality, there is no doubt that local talents can fill the manpower needs,” Nova added.

The 26-year-old Nova, who has a degree and an academic excellence award in computer science, has kept faith in the capability of local talents by hiring talents straight out of a local computer school.

“Most of our developers are graduates of the Comteq Computer and Business College because this is the only school which provides solid IT instructions in the Subic-Olongapo City area,” Nova explained.

“Comparatively speaking, students and graduates of Comteq display more than competence; they are good in team efforts, they understand the need for promptness with their deliverables, and they have high morale, which results in tension-free work even when there is pressure,” he added.

For the Magsaysay web-site project, for example, Victa Solutions tapped several programmers and developers from Comteq to beef up the firm’s technical staff. These included Comteq instructors Jov Mark Felarca, who helped out in planning, concept development and project management; Ryan Macaspac, who assisted in research and development; and Anjo Catindig, who executed graphic design and animation.

Two Comteq students, Ederson Lim and Paul Ameer Jaime, meanwhile, assisted in Web development.

“The task for the web-site design concept was handed down to us with no specific instruction regarding color scheme and design, so the design team really had to brainstorm for two concepts and then decide later which had the better look and feel,” Nova recalled.

“When it was announced that we won the best design, we were really surprised because we knew we were up against some of the most competitive sites there were in the celebrities category,” he said.

Comteq administrator Ansbert Joaquin, meanwhile, revealed this was not the first time that their students shone in the field of ICT, pointing out that another team, headed by Comteq’s Felarca, became the overall winner in Globe Telecom’s G-Cash competition last year.

“The Subic Bay area is actually brimming with ICT talents, despite the apparent disinterest of big companies to invest in the area,” Joaquin said.

“Because of this very sad situation, the best talents in Subic are pirated out of the area by companies in Manila or even those based abroad,” he added.

Among those who have been successfully wooed out of Subic, Joaquin said, are Comteq graduates who have designed and developed software for FedEx’s Asia hub loading and destination planning system; computer generated images for the Subic-based Idess Interactive Technologies; point of sale and payroll systems for various Subic locators; data systems for Meralco, United Coconut Planters Bank and Global Steel Philippines; as well as banking solutions software for the Slovenska Sporitelna (Europe) Bank.

Earlier, the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) has noted that the Subic Bay area has lagged in attracting investments in BPO and knowledge-based industries.

According to SBMA Administrator Armand Arreza, Subic has to provide additional incentives to pioneering knowledge-based industries for the free port to make a significant presence in the burgeoning Philippine BPO market.

Arreza added that the SBMA will now work with local schools to enhance their ICT curriculum and initiate the development of an IT park within the free port.

Nova and Joaquin said these developments are what local talents have been waiting for.

“There was a time when they lamented that investors in ICT were most willing, but the manpower supply was weak. Now the reverse may be true,” noted Joaquin.

“Today local ICT talents are raring to prove they’re among the best there is, but there is simply a shortage of opportunities to showcase their skills and abilities,” he added. 

Source: http://subicbaynews.blogspot.com -  Subic ICT Talents Raring For the Big Time

The Big Little School Delivers

By Henry Empeno
From The Business Mirror Regional

May 9-10, 2008

Past the bridge as you enter Subic Bay Freeport’s Rizal Gate is a cluster of small, ordinary-looking buildings fronted by a huge narra tree.  Nothing special there, it would seem.  But inside, in fact, is a laboratory where some of the best local talents in Information Technology get worked up – and literally that is.  This is COMTEQ Computer and Business College, the Subic Bay Freeport Zone’s local version of the School of Hard Knocks.

Here, as apart of their curricula, students taking up IT and computer science courses have to go through at least 150 hours of practicum at the school’s Workstation and IT Center.  Those who are really IT inclined get to work extra hours at their own time, studying the nuts, bolts and bytes of both hardware and software.

This is actually COMTEQ’s best-known little secret,” says school deputy administrator Ansbert Joaquin who runs the day-to-day operations of the family-owned business.  “We are now planning to merge the Workstation and IT Center and call it the COMTEQ Incubation Laboratory, but our on-site, on-the-job training facilities remain to be our distinct advantage.”

That edge has enabled this little school to deliver, big time.

According to an alumni tracking program that the school started early this year, most of its graduates have gone on to work in information systems offices of Corporations and agencies like Meralco, FedEx, Wistron Infocomm, United Coconut Planters Bank, IDESS Interactive Technologies and the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA).

A lot too, have worked on projects like 3D design and animation, websites, client-server applications and other specialized software.

Right now, Joaquin said, COMTEQ students are working on two projects: the website of Zambales Rep. Mitos Magsaysay and the online registration program for the ICT Congress that will be held in Subic this August.

Joaquin said the school has had its share of really brilliant students who made investing in the school a source of pride for the Joaquin brood, who started the school 11 years ago.

Among those that easily come to mind, Joaquin says are Joseph Metran, Artemio Sales Jr., and Anjo Catindig.

“Joseph is one unforgettable guy because after his first sem at COMTEQ, he asked to be signed on as a working student.  He said he no longer had money for tuition,” Joaquin relates.  “I agreed, and now after doing lots of programs for some big companies, he’s offering his services to COMTEQ for free.   He designed the payroll system that COMTEQ is now using.”

Sales, meanwhile, was an excellent charcoal and pastel artist who studied computer graphics to express his art.  The last time Joaquin checked, his former student was working as a graphic artist for former First Lady Imelda Marcos.

Catindig, on the other hand, was the kid SBMA Administrator Armand Arreza hired on the spot last year after seeing an audio-visual presentation prepared by Catindig during the school’s commencement rites.  As it turned out however,   IDESS, a Subic business locator, beat SBMA to the draw, hiring Catindig even before the SBMA could process his papers.

Aside from turning out highly qualified IT graduates, COMTEQ has also earned honors in interschool IT competitions.   It was third place in the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) provincial IT skills competition in 1999, champion in the 2000 TESDA provincial and regional skills contests in electronics and third honors in the 2001 TESDA National skills Competition held in Davao.

But what placed COMTEQ on the local IT map was its second-place victory in the Globe G-Cash G-Nius tilt, a nationwide competition held in 2005.

Joaquin says COMTEQ has come a long way from a three-classroom affair with 40 students when it got started in 1997.

Starting as a TESDA-accredited vocational education school that taught practical electronics and computer programming, the school had since matured into a Commission on Higher Education –recognized College with separate institutes for multimedia and information technology, business and management studies and the original technical education and skills development.  Now it has 20 classrooms, 16 staff members and 34 full-time and part-time faculty members.

The school population is growing too.  From a total of 368 enrollees last school year , COMTEQ sees a 100 percent increase this year.

The growing student population, of course includes some 25 full “COMTEQ scholars” who get free tuition and miscellaneous services, and another 40 students who get from 25 percent to 100 percent off from matriculation fees.

“It’s our way of giving back to the community”, says Joaquin, adding that some earnings from the Workstation and IT Center projects (yes, students do get paid for their work while studying at COMTEQ) would soon help fund the school’s scholarship program.

While enjoying only 17 percent of the market share among the IT schools in the Subic Bay-Olongapo City area, COMTEQ is now headed for better times.

“We’ve never had it so good.  With the opening of our business courses, we’ll also start taking on the BPO and KPO requirements in the Subic bay Freeport Zone, as well as abroad,” Joaquin reveals.

As its corporate vision declares, “COMTEQ will be the leader in the use of real-work environment as an effective training method in delivering world-class Filipino IT professionals.”

COMTEQ G-Wizards displays ingenuity in Globe’s G-Cash G-Nius

The COMTEQ G-Wizards were awarded the second place in the first-ever intercollegiate nationwide contest entitled, “G-Nius: the Search for the Great G-Cash Idea” on November 17, 2005 at the Filipino Heritage Library.  This contest was organized by Globe Telecom to give the youth the opportunity to create creative and innovative ideas on how to use Globe G-Cash to fulfill consumers’ needs.

The members of the G-Wizards are Jonathan Beduya (team leader), Ken De Guzman, Hasmin D. Cuevas, and Barbra Gonzaga and were lead by their coach, Mr. Ed Joaquin.  They received a plaque and P50,000.00 cash prize.  Though they were hesitant and doubtful of their abilities at first, the whole team worked hard in finishing their entry for the contest.   They came up with the idea of “G-Cash Premium.  This business plan focuses on improving G-Cash and making it more convenient and more accessible by allowing automatic reload of their G-Cash wallet from their registered bank accounts by simply using their mobile handsets.  In addition, the team’s business plan aims to give consumers more purchasing power by using their adding credit service to their G-Cash accounts. 

Among the many schools that COMTEQ has bested are Central Mindanao University (third placer), STI College-Lucena (fourth placer) and College of St. John-Roxas (fifth placer).   And though they failed to beat Kalayaan College, winner of the G-Nius contest, the COMTEQ G-Wizards as well as the whole COMTEQ College is happy and proud because this only shows that the college truly has intelligent and creative students who can compete against representative from far bigger schools.

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Related Article:

Globe taps youth market for G-nius ideas 

December 9, 2005, 8:00am 

Globe G-Cash, the world’s first wireless and cardless m-commerce platform, upholds its commitment to redefine and expand the borders of Filipino m-commerce, with their recent recognition of mobile innovations generated by G-Nius: the Search for the Great G-Cash Idea. Organized by Globe Telecom and G-Xchange, Inc. — its wholly-owned subsidiary tasked to oversee the development of G-Cash – the competition aimed to foster creative thinking and business acumen among the youth by giving them an opportunity to develop m-commerce applications based on their needs and experiences.

Five regional winners representing North and South Luzon, National Capital Region, Visayas and Mindanao respectively, were selected to further develop their initial product concept into a full-blown business plan. This was presented to a panel of judges including Dean Eduardo A. Morato of the Asian Institute of Management Asian Center for Entrepreneurship, Dr. William Medrano, Executive Director of the Commission of Higher Education, Chairman Paolo Benigno A. Aquino IV of the National Youth Commission and Rodell Garcia and Mario Domingo of Globe Telecom.

Kalayaan College’s Titan Research beat the nationwide entries to gain top G-Nius honors, with their G-Cash application, "The 4Gs," a multi-faceted program which seamlessly integrates m-commerce technology with transport and toll payments, while enhancing the service’s existing retail functionality with a rewards program and exclusive mobile shopping portal.

"Personal experience played a great part in the formulation of our concept," said team captain David James Ramos. Their enhancement of G-Cash retail services, in particular, were inspired by frequent shopper points and online shopping websites like eBay which require credit cards – a luxury that few young people can afford. "Our goal was to make G-Cash more relevant to the mobile public, especially to the youth," he added.

Second-placers Comteq G-Wizards, on the other hand, focused on making G-Cash more accessible and convenient with "G-Cash Premium," a bank partnership that allowed automatic G-Cash mobile wallet cash transfers with registered bank accounts. "Our group observed that the basic impediment to the use of G-Cash was the cash-in process, and this is what we sought to address," says Jonathan Beduya, who led the contingent representing Comteq Computer & Business College of Olongapo City. Other m-commerce applications that made it to the final round include shopping and auction portals suggested by teams from STI College-Lucena and Central Mindanao University and a G-Cash powered livelihood website from College of St. John-Roxas.

Source: www.mb.com.ph - Globe taps youth market for G-nius ideas