First national ICT summit slated in Iligan City

ZAMBOANGA CITY, Nov. 25 (PNA) – The scheduled two-day first National Summit of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) councils will focus on the local ICT councils and foundations' competitiveness enhancement in the business processing outsourcing (BPO) industry.

The summit is scheduled to be held from November 25 to 26 at the Maria Cristina Hotel in Iligan City which was organized by the Iligan Information and Communications Technology Council (IICTC or Iligan eCouncil), Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT), and the Iligan City Chamber of Commerce with support from USAID's Growth with Equity in Mindanao (GEM) Program.

IICTC chairman Dr. Emmanuel Lagare said the two-day event is expected to lead to the formation of a National ICT Council to serve as an umbrella for networking and coordinating the activities of local organizations.

"These councils have sprung up outside Metro Manila and Cebu in areas which seek to attract BPO investment as the industry expands," Lagare added.

He noted that local ICT councils and foundations have proliferated in cities and municipalities across the country in response to the rapid development of the BPO sector.

Lagare said successful public-private partnerships in ICT development in different regions of the Philippines as well as labor requirements for BPO operations will be presented in the plenary sessions.

He said there will also be in-depth analyses of the "next wave cities" of Cebu, Iloilo, Bicol and Davao, which have been identified by the Business Process Outsourcing Association (BPAP) of the Philippines as "attractive locations around the country that have the potential to host an ICT ecosystem by leveraging on local talent and infrastructure."

He added that urban centers with promising labor pools and expanding infrastructure such as the cities of General Santos, Zamboanga and Iligan are already gearing up for inclusion in the succeeding tier of "next wave cities."

Iligan City houses one of the country's top technical school, the Iligan Institute of Technology (IIT), on its Mindanao State University (MSU) campus.