Academe pushes Cebu as hub for mobile apps development

CEBU, Philippines - While skills niching is considered as one of the competitive edge in attracting investments, and push high-paying employment opportunities for graduates, Cebu’s academe aims to make Cebu as the center for “mobile development” applications in the country.

Gregg Gabison, president of the Cebu Educational Development for Information Technology (Cedfit) said that collaborated works among universities and colleges in Cebu is being in place, to identify their respective niche in the mobile application, while Android, and other similar applications are now getting popular and reaching out to the mainstream market.

Gabison, who is also the dean for the University of San Jose Recoletos (USJ-R) College of Information, Communication, and Technology (ICT) said that one of the most active universities that is now pushing for more Android applications software, is USJ-R.

At present, the university is doing research project in Sugar CRM (Customer Relationship Management 2) using the Android application.

While other colleges and universities, he said are also developing their own niche in the mobile applications, depending on their strength.

Hopefully, Gabison said Cebu will be able to take off in its bid to become the leader in mobile applications development in the Philippines.

Mobile technology is universal, he said the potential is huge and that compared to other applications, Android is the most cost efficient, and products and services that can be developed under this, could beyond basic mobile applications, but also will include security system, using the open source gateway.

USJ-R has existing partnership with Globe Telecoms, and other mobile, and technology companies to come up with applications that is uniquely for the Philippines, as well as introduce the students to the industry trends in the fast moving technology development.

Earlier, Nokia announced the introduction of its “Xtreme Java: National School Mobile App Development Challenge”, encouraging students to showcase their innovations on mobile applications.

In Cebu, Nokia is talking with two universities to discover Cebuano-developed innovative mobile apps that have potential for commercialization.

Nokia Philippines senior marketing service manager Rhome Marcojos, said that despite the strong popularity of other mobile platforms, like iOs, and Android, Nokia’s symbian-based platform and Windows, Q+ for Symbian, Java and Web apps for S40 still strong in the Philippines. — (FREEMAN)