PRESIDENT’s REPORT
(Delivered by Dr. Randy S. Gamboa, PSITE President, during the PSITE National Convention, Panglao Island, Dayo Hill, Mayacabac, Dauis, Bohol, February 26, 2010)
Maajong hapon sa tanan, magandang hapon sa inyong lahat, good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
Before I start my report, I would like to personally thank the members of the PSITE National Board for their unwavering support for the attainment of our thrust, dubbed as PReParE. When I took over the presidency of PSITE, my first order of the day for the board was to inform them that I wanted to see a “working board in ACTION”, and indeed they are really working hard even up to the extent of spending their own money and extra time.
My term was full of firsts and new things. It all started during last year’s convention held at Dipolog City. It was the first convention that we had a panel discussion during our technical sessions and fireworks at night. The Jedi night was held outside the convention area, and that was in Dakak. And more significantly, it was the first time that a member outside of Luzon got to be elected as President of PSITE National.
We had our strategic planning and induction of officers last March 30-31, 2009. The outdoor induction was held at the garden of UP-Hotel in Diliman, Quezon City. It was again a first. It was that time that my PReParE agenda, was presented and eventually adopted by the Board. The PReParE agenda gave clear directions not only to the National Board but also to the regional presidents. We assigned project leaders for every undertaking that we had.
The manner that this convention came about, from organizing to the actual execution, exhibits a great improvement in terms of professionalism among PSITE members. For the agenda on Professionalism, we emphasized on proper documentation. And with documentation, we started of course with taking a second look at our Constitution and By-Laws or our CBL. The chair of this project is Sir Farley Abrigo. Series of meetings were held and even invited mam Peach Tinio, one of the original framers of the CBL. The revision of the CBL is already up for approval and ratification in this general assembly. Thank you Sir Farley for the effort and diligence.
We improved the transparency among the national board. Communications were usually through emails and mobile phones. Official transactions, even on fund disbursements, were being communicated to all board members for comments and approval. The regional presidents were also updated on the activities of PSITE national. And as a show of support to the regional chapters, I also attended the induction of officers of NCR and Zamboanga.
PSITE was again recognized as a professional organization and was invited by CHED to endorse IT educators as TPITE members in the pursuit of strengthening the role in assisting them to formulate policies and standards last February 12, 2010. It is with great pride that our members will be part of TPITE .
In line with the Research agenda, it was our first time to hold a pre-NCITE conference. Presented were model research frameworks, advising and manuscript templates for BSCS, BSIT and BSIS, coupled with best practices in those fields. The NCR research capability building framework was also presented.
Due to its complexity and time constraints, we were not able to have a clear delineation of research among BSCS, BSIT and BSIS. The chair of this project, mam Cherry Lyn Sta. Romana and her committee members, did a follow-up workshop held last January 29-30, 2010 at the Computer Science Department conference room of the University of the Philippines, Diliman and invited Dr. Vlade Mariano of UP-LB, Sir Oliver Malabanan of DLSU and Dr. Allan Sioson of ADNU as consultants to finalize on the research framework. The result of the workshop will be presented by mam Cherry Lyn tomorrow.
What were the Partnership efforts we did during our term? First of all, with Sun Microsystems, we had an OpenJive Challenge last July, 2009. The objective of the challenge is to drive students’ passion and enthusiasm for innovation through the use of Open Source technologies such as Java Technology, JavaFX, NetBeans IDE, OpenSolaris, MySQL, GlassFish, Project Wonderland, Zembly and many others to develop cutting-edge applications for desktop, web or mobile, that will address key issues that organizations face today, while fostering interactivity between communities on the Internet.
In partnership with UP-ITTC, we actively participated in the Y4IT, held last September 8-11, at three(3) different venues, University Theater, UP Film Institute, and Ang Bahay ng Alumni at the University of the Philippines–Diliman, Quezon City . We set up an exhibit booth and provided speakers from PSITE. There was also one session during the conference wherein we promoted PSITE to the IT faculty who are not yet PSITE members.
Last December 3, 2009, we signed a memorandum of agreement with deVcon. This is a cooperation to conduct nationwide deVcon activities within the constituents covered by PSITE and its local affiliations. The details of this deVcon was already discussed by Ms. Diane Suico yesterday afternoon. This may be included as part of the monthly seminar/workshop of the regional chapters.
How about the Education agenda? Our intended focus when we had education in mind aside from educating and capacitating our members was participating in educating the voters. As early as June and July, we coordinated with Bonnie Belen of Smartmatic-TIM. The National ICT confederation of the Philippines (NICP) in partnership with Smartmatic-TIM invited me to attend the 2nd National ICT Summit, held last November 5-7, 2009, at the Fontana Convention Centre, Clark Freeport Zone, Pampanga.It was then that I came to know that they cannot deal with us directly as far as educating the voters is concerned. They deal with human resource agencies like Manred. So we just endorsed it to the regional chapters to be part of the manpower pool of the automated election.
Still on education, we held a Faculty Development workshop at the Crowne Regency Hotel last October 2009, where Sir Bart Tanguilig was the project leader. This is a training workshop on IT course design and teaching strategies. This is part of the TPITE and PSITE faculty development activities for ITE faculty members. Sir Oliver Malabanan of DLSU was the speaker of the workshop. The same workshop was held in Region 4 where Sir Farley Abrigo was the project leader last December 2009. Hopefully, there will also be workshop like this in Visayas and Mindanao regions.
A very noble act by PSITE last year was the donation of more than sixty thousand pesos (P60,000.00) for the victims of Ondoy in regions 1, 2, 3, 4, CAR and NCR. This is the first time that PSITE extended this kind of help to its members.
While we have those accomplishments, there are still some that are in the pipeline. One of these is the conduct of the Philippine Java Cup or PhilJive. This is a prelude to the OpenJive I mentioned a while ago. Second is the assessment of the Java Education and Development initiative (JEDI) program. Third is the possible partnership with the Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA). The MOA is being reviewed by them. Lastly, a proposed MOA for a partnership with PLDT is underway.
We still have a lot of things to do. And we now have a lot of things to share. It’s time to intensify peer-to-peer. This means communicating to your peers, sharing the resources, and most especially develop linkages to further our PSITE agenda.
Ladies and gentlemen, now that we’re PReParEd, let’s go peer-to-PEER.
Thank you and good afternoon.
