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| (Photo by Malacañang Photo Bureau) |
President Benigno S. Aquino III announced on Monday that the Philippines, in collaboration with the Philippine Development Foundation (Phildev) and the University of California in the United States, are working together on two major projects to improve the country’s information technology and education sectors.
In his speech delivered during the Phildev Forum on Harnessing Filipino Innovation and Entrepreneurship held at the Peninsula Manila in Makati City, the President said these two projects: the Philippines-California Advanced Research Institutes or PCARI and the Thin Client Cloud Computing project, or CloudTop would vastly improve the government’s IT capabilities and bring the way we educate our children to the next level, respectively.
The PCARI, which the President said costs P1.76-billion “will guide us in establishing better a information infrastructure here, which can improve the government’s capacities in Information technology, effectively helping strengthen disaster preparedness, for example, or improving the delivery of basic government services.”
“The project also involves putting up another institute that focuses on Health Innovation and Translational Medicine, which will further our research and development capabilities in terms of medicine and health equipment. It will likewise push forward our efforts at telemedicine, so that soon, perhaps, our doctors can help diagnose more Filipinos, especially those in far-flung areas, who have for so long been left in the margins of society,” he added.
CloudTop, on the other hand, “seeks to create a cloud computing infrastructure that will deliver new teaching and learning materials faster for lower level education, which can later be used in higher levels too, and even in government.”
At a cost of P250-million, the President said that the CloudTop project has made him “optimistic about increasing the amount of knowledge we can pass on to the children of this country—to our future work force.”
“Perhaps this project can equip them with the vast knowledge they need—adding on to the strengths and skills they already possess—so that even more Filipinos can pursue truly productive careers,” the President said.
Fueled by this optimism, the President said that should Phildev and its co-collaborators come up with other worthwhile projects that will harness the qualities and resources of the Philippines, his government would be more than ready to support such endeavors.
“Let me say: if you can come up with possible collaborations that can benefit the Filipino people as much as the two projects I mentioned, then our administration will always be ready to listen. I am confident that we will see even more similar collaborations in the future,” the President said.
Source: Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO)
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