DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/3 August) – As Davao City strengthens its bid to become one of the identified hubs for the infromation technology and business process outsourcing (BPI) industries, the need for an ecosystem that can propagate such development like that of Silicon Valley emerges.
“We have learned that we need more investors, but for investors to come in, we need to foster an ecosystem that will enhance, innovate, and encourage technological ideas like that of Silicon Valley,” said Bert Bariga, executive vice presidetn of Information and Communication Technology Davao, referring to the area in northern California that hosts a large number of the United States’ high-tech companies.
“We adopted that thought and we can tag Davao as the ‘Silicon Gulf’,” he said.
Lawyer Sam Matunog, president of the Davao Software Industry, said that the whole of Silicon Gulf will also need an incubation facility where software developers and innovative programs will converge and be supported from the research level up to the point of implementation.
“We adopt the ecosystem Silicon Valley has; if failure happens, we don’t just throw the entrepreneur’s idea or the software away. Instead, we have to support them with their creative properties and sooner or later it will grow,” he added.
“Failure is actually a positive sign to us that we are making progress; this means that we learn; and we take care of the creative property of the individuals,” Matunog said.
Among the latest software that are in their prime stage are Pyroclave and Peakline, these are system solutions that are designed to make cost more efficient.
“We are eyeing Brokenshire as the incubation facility for the Silicon Gulf; this is where the facilities will be housed. This could be another facet for our City’s marketing; and as of this moment, with the capacity of our BPO industry workforce, investors are impressed and three BPO locators are coming in, so this is a sign that the world is starting to eye us as key players of this industry” adds Barriga.
Last year, Davao topped the list for the Next Wave Cities for outsourcing industries; scoring high on infrastructure and qualified talents. (Joan Mae Soco-Bantayan / MindaNews)
