Graduation 2005

I was invited to be a commencement speaker at an IT school. Unfortunately, I had to decline due to a scheduling conflict. I decided to go ahead and write a commencement address anyway. Here is what I would have said:

They used to say that the only things certain in this world are death and taxes. Today, there are four things certain in my life: death, taxes, computers and change. For those of you who can master the last one, then you are ahead of the game.

Today is an exciting day for your parents. After months of homework flowcharting, programming and testing, you are now certifiable, sorry I meant certified programmers.

The market for IT programmers is still growing. New markets are opening up for programming for games on the cellphone. Inventors continue to figure out new digital gadgets to make our life more convenient; embedded software will always be needed in these digital devices. However, the competitors are many and in some cases stronger than the Philippines. India is strong in IT programming and has become the source of technical research and programming for companies like GE and Microsoft. In fact, some Indian companies like Infosys and Wipro are even buying US companies to increase their presence in the US.

Opportunities abound. As Filipinos, we still have a window in the call center business and business process outsourcing. Our culture, being so based on American TV, makes us adaptable to the needs of the Americans. The Gartner Research Group has estimated the global market for business process outsourcing in excess of $125 billion and growing more than 10 percent a year. Companies in the contact center industries like Convergys, Teletech and People Support continue to expand in the Philippines. Global industrial companies like P&G and Cypress Semiconductors have their shared back-office services headquartered in the Philippines. We can be proud of our very own SPI Technologies as it continues to be the biggest BPO provider in the region.

My Two Cents: I leave you with a final thought: the journey is the destination. If we enjoy the journey, our passion will show. With passion, we can outperform expectation. With passion, you can be great!

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Dickson Co is CFO (C is for Cheap) for Dfnn, Intelligent Wave Philippines and HatchAsia.com. For comments or suggestions, e-mail [email protected].