IT-Academe alliance pushed

CEBU, Philippines - The Cebu Educational Development Foundation for IT (Cedfit) aims to strengthen the industry-academe linkage system in Cebu to sustain the ICT growth in the province.

Cedfit president Bonifacio Belen said that although the industry-academe linkage structure is already there, this time a more active stance will be started by Cedfit to sustain Cebu’s position as one of the premier ICT destinations in the world.

In coordination with the National ICT Confederation of the Philippines, Belen said Cedfit will soon formulate a sound roadmap for a stronger industry-academe linkage in Cebu.

Because the ICT industry is the most dynamic sector, the academe has to trail blaze with the fast changing need of industries for specialized skills, especially in high-value IT skills like programming, software development, animation, and others.

This effort is not only seen to attract big-ticket investments for ICT sector, but also promote the “brain-gain” bid of the country, luring Filipinos who are working abroad, to come back home, and find the stable job opportunity.

A sustainable industry-academe linkage is very important for the growth of the sector they are complementary sectors that one cannot survive without the other.

Cedfit, which primary aims to sustain and increase the quality and quantity of manpower in ICT industry in Cebu, will soon introduce its industry-academe roadmap, which include the provision of ready-employment for ICT graduates from different universities and colleges in Cebu.

For high-value skills in IT profession, such as software and web development, technical support, and other complicated and sophisticated skills demand in the sector, most big companies offer at least P40K a month salary.

Currently, there is a shortage of supply for high-value IT skills. Demand is estimated at 1,500 per year. Cebu on the other hand, can only supply an average of 50 software engineer graduates a month.

The influx of big names in the IT industry in the world, that have existing operations in Cebu, will surely attract more multinational IT companies to come to Cebu.

Belen said the province should be ready to supply with the needed talents of these IT company giants.

The challenge now is on how to improve the number of graduates having specialized degrees in different ICT fields.

 This is the reason why a more intensified academe-industry linkage will be set up in Cebu. Serious partnership between these two sectors should be sustained for long term, and Cedfit is going to cement this system further.

Another challenge is also in the engineering methodology process of doing high-end IT works, Belen said.

“Higher-end IT is very broad, and complicated. Its skills’ requirement is also constantly moving,” he said.