Mapua's engineering programs first to get international recognition in SEA

MANILA, Philippines - A school that has contributed significantly to the development of the Philippines is the Mapúa Institute of Technology, the 85-year old institution that has consistently produced topnotch engineers and architects as shown by the excellent performance of its graduates in the country’s licensure examinations.

In late July this year, three Mapúa programs (Electrical, Electronics and Computer Engineering) got formal recognition for meeting international standards when they were granted accreditation by the ABET, the US-based and world-leading accrediting body in applied science, engineering, computing and technology. These programs are the first and only to be accredited by ABET in the Philippines. They are also the first programs in Southeast Asia on which ABET took an “accreditation action.”

Mapúa envisions itself as becoming an international center of excellence. In late 2009, it was appointed as the Cisco Academy Training Center (CATC) for “CCNA Security” for the whole of South Asia, a choice made by Cisco after vetting schools in eight countries. In 2002, Mapúa was chosen by Emerson Process Management from among Asian schools to run its training program for its contact-center engineers who remotely trouble-shoot its state-of-the-art control systems. In research, Mapúa papers on nanotechnology and carbon capture technology (the latter co-authored with Taiwan’s CYCU faculty) were adjudged Best Papers in the 2006 Asian Symposium on Materials and Processing and in the 16th ASEAN Regional Symposium in Chemical Engineering (2009), respectively.

The fact that Mapúa has chalked up these recent achievements should come as no surprise, for among its alumni are UC Berkeley Professor Emeritus Leon Chua, who, in 1971, first described and named the fourth fundamental element in integrated circuits, the memristor, the existence of which was proven by HP Labs in 2008 by way of a physical example; and Silicon Valley venture capitalist Dado Banatao, who is credited with pioneering the PC Chip Set and graphics acceleration architecture.

Thanks to the heavy investments made by the Yuchengco Group of Companies (YGC) after it acquired the school in 1999, and to the long tradition of excellence passed on by the Mapúa family, the Mapúa Institute of Technology has undoubtedly emerged as a global player.