A DIGITALLY CONNECTED, DIGITALLY COMPETENT PHILIPPINES

Mina Lim is WYSIWYG. She has no filters, no pretensions when it comes to what she wants. And what she wants is a digitally competent, digitally connected Philippines.

Mina is the head of Oracle in the Philippines. As Managing Director for what could be the world’s fastest growing Cloud service, Lim said the future of the Philippines rests of its ability to quickly immerse into the Cloud.

“I can see a nation that is conscious of the benefits of operating on the Cloud, as it will be advantageous for both government and enterprise. Many already realize this. The Cloud frees us access to technology making it available to all,” Lim said.

“With the Oracle Cloud in particular, the same solid, high-end enterprise grade technology is offered to all organizations equally, from the small business to the large enterprise. We make no distinctions—they all get the same technology Oracle offers end to end. It is only in they way the consume it that differs. This is how we democratize technology,” Lim stresses.

The technology she mentioned is Oracle’s Autonomous Database, which she described as the world’s most popular and technologically advanced database. Revolutionizing data management, the autonomous database manages, tunes and patches itself, enabling users to innovate faster on a highly secure platform that allows users to pay for only what they use.

“The Oracle Autonomous Database, makes it easy for everyone to start operating on the Cloud. It is so intuitive, there is actually nothing much to learn and nothing much to do, which makes programmers and developers are more productive. With many available features it is easy to spin up new applications. Artificial intelligence will do a better job of analyzing data, while people can be busy creating new things,” Lim points out.

When asked what she recommends for the Philippine government to operate seamlessly and integrate the many “islands of information and data,” she said that aside from the Autonomous Database, utilizing the power of Oracle Business Cloud can deliver on the matters that are important to running a government. 

This includes using Blockchain for creating a single source of truth useful for managing the business or finance side of government that may include items like the treasury, National ID System, Customs protocols (a digital blue book is an example), passport or visa processing, biddings and purchases as well as taxation can all be protected and verified by the hyperledger. 

 Machine learning and artificial intelligence which are now driving new business models and creating new business value can also be useful for government in managing it local government units. 

“Remember the Oracle Cloud is so robust and versatile, the technology for big enterprises is available for small businesses. Thus the technology for a national government can be replicated inexpensively at the local, even barangay level,” Lim points out.

When asked how companies start their journey to the Cloud and what restrictions or limitations hamper the flight to it, Lim explains that Oracle, through local partners, start by helping identify which part of the business is ready for Cloud.

“We make businesses comfortable with the platform and they will realize the value immediately. The only restrictions I could think of right now is data sovereignty, which is prevalent in cases of banks because of policy. On the question of limitations, companies need to pay attention to budgets of course, but oftentimes after a cost-benefit analysis, every customer is able to see the value of moving to the Oracle Cloud. Other platforms may be cheaper initially, but can they do what we do? Can they guarantee this kind of security, or resilience or adaptability? Businesses see this value for money. That is why there is so much interest in the various offerings in our Cloud platform,” Lim explained. 

The one-day conference in held at the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, delivered deep insight into industry trends and breakthroughs driven by the latest technologies from Oracle. –RGBTribdino

MORE companies today are looking to equip their employees with smart mobile devices to boost their performance, guarantee connectivity anywhere and anytime, track or manage inventory to improve supply chain efficiency, improve patient care or even elevate personal experiences such as shopping. Businesses in the manufacturing, retail, healthcare, as well as transportation and logistics industries are increasingly adopting enterprise-class smartphones as a pillar of technological transformation in the face of the growing need for instant and secure communication, portability of information, aggressive bar-code data collection and long device life cycles.

Filipino CEOs today believe that business strategies should prioritize the use of emerging technologies and data analytics. More than 90 percent of CEO surveyed in the Philippine CEO Survey 2018[1] believe that innovations changed their industries in the past 10 years. And more than 40 percent of the CEO respondents said they plan to further invest in e-commerce, AI, financial technology, healthcare and software technology to improve their businesses’ operation efficiency, meet the growing demands of the market and deliver better customer experience. 

According to Zebra's global Intelligent Enterprise Index, 49 percent of businesses are on the path to becoming intelligent enterprises. These companies are connecting the physical and digital worlds to drive innovation through real-time guidance, data-powered environments and collaborative mobile workflows to reduce costs, automate operations and increase productivity. 

As mobility becomes more pervasive across all industries, there is a need for enterprise-class smartphones built for challenging environments. These devices can withstand the elements, survive drops and knocks, and resist water and dust. More than ever, businesses are realizing that their mobile workers require more than just the connectivity offered by a personal mobile phone.

Based on Zebra’s Future of Fulfillment study, inventory allocation, reduction in backorders, and accepting and managing product returns are just some of the major challenges logistics companies are looking to solve to achieve higher levels of customer satisfaction. With an enterprise-class smartphone, mobile workers have multiple tools in one device, providing them with voice and data connectivity, the ability to scan bar codes in any condition, and access business-class apps, utilities and software that can improve security and network access and increase staff collaboration and productivity. Businesses are increasingly using GPS to manage routes, and their enterprise-class smartphones not only help with directions but also provide access real-time information. In addition, most of these devices include a walkie-talkie functionality, which allows instant push-to-talk (PTT) calls between compatible devices, thereby enabling companies to increase real-time communication and collaboration to improve customer service.

Businesses, particularly SMBs that want to manage their budgets better and want to avoid substantial repair costs typically associated with consumer smartphones, can benefit from rugged smartphones. When companies purchase a smartphone for their business, they should look for included security features that protect their data and business-critical information. 

Companies should be mindful of their devices and ensure that their smartphones and corporate data are not vulnerable to security breaches or risk becoming obsolete when a new operating system is introduced. For example, Zebra’s Mobility DNA solution includes LifeGuard for Android, which extends the life cycle and security of Zebra’s enterprise-class smartphones and mobile computers by delivering aggressive security/patch updates well beyond consumer support.

Google's Android Enterprise Recommended Program has recently announced the best rugged and enterprise-class smartphones for challenging environments. Zebra’s TC25 was recognized and described as ideal to operate in difficult conditions. Equipped with Zebra Mobility DNA, this smartphone has distinct enterprise capabilities to provide businesses with unmatched productivity, simpler application management and easier integration. 

For more information on enterprise-class rugged smartphones built for businesses, visit Zebra mobile solutions.

WHO IS TRACY YEO?

Tracy Yeo is the country lead at Zebra Technologies for the Philippines and Vietnam since 2016. She is responsible for the overall business strategy, customer relations (channels partners and end users), as well as spearheading the local team in generating growth for both countries. 

During her span with Zebra Technologies, Tracy worked on several key milestone projects including one that made Zebra Philippines the first country in Southeast Asia to achieve the successful implementation of a complete end-to-end solution for its client. This tremendous result further earned Tracy and her team the coveted “Strategic Win of the Year” award. 

Since joining Zebra Technologies in 2012, Tracy has held various key roles including Channel Account Manager for Indonesia and Distributor Channel Account Manager for Southeast Asia before moving to her current position. 

Prior to joining Zebra Technologies, Tracy has been in the telecommunications industry for about 19 years. One of her previous roles was Regional Sales Manager at Motorola Mobility Inc. where she accumulated a wealth of experience in channels management and distribution.

ABOUT ZEBRA 

Zebra (NASDAQ: ZBRA) empowers the front line of business in retail/ecommerce, manufacturing, transportation and logistics, healthcare and other industries to achieve a performance edge. With more than 10,000 partners across 100 countries, we deliver industry-tailored, end-to-end solutions that intelligently connect people, assets and data to help our customers make business-critical decisions. Our market-leading solutions elevate the shopping experience, track and manage inventory as well as improve supply chain efficiency and patient care. Ranked on Forbes’ list of America’s Best Employers for the last three years, Zebra helps our customers capture their edge. For more information, visit www.zebra.com or sign up for our news alerts. Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. 

THE Philippines may very well be at the forefront of the digital wave. Of all the factors crucial to a country’s digital transformation, a young population is arguably the most important one. The Philippines is already one of Asia’s youngest nations with a median age of 23 in a population of 104 million. 

Young people are typically faster to learn new technologies. Not only do they adapt to change first, they also push the frontiers of tech adoption the world over. In recent years, it is the vibrancy of young people that has reliably helped unleash economic growth. 

Digital transformation in the Philippines has been a favorite theme for consumers, businesses, and the government. Deemed as a world leader in social media, there are about 67 million Facebook accounts in the Philippines according to the UK-based group “We Are Social.” There’s also so much growth and potential in e-commerce. In 2017 alone, Filipino consumers spent around $2.16B (P140B) on online shopping. Only recently, the Philippines ranked Top 12th Internet user globally according to Internet World Stats. 

However, the excitement around the promising numbers is not enough. Equally important, if not more, is the need to ensure that the country has the right infrastructure, processes, and technologies in place that enable and empower digital growth. 

In the case of the Philippines, it starts with three Ss. 

SCALE. The most basic requirement for going digital is access to the Internet. Despite recent progress, Philippines lags behind on this front. According to the data from Statista.com, only 62.9 percent of the Philippines population had access to the Internet as of June 2017. That compares with 78.3 percent in Malaysia, 82.4 percent in Thailand and 83.6 percent in Singapore. 

The country needs to ensure that the remaining population gets access to the Internet to bring them into the digital fold and fully exploit its potential. 

Additionally, it is critical to ensure that access is affordable as well. According to the World Economic Forum’s Global Information Technology Report (GITR) 2016, The Philippines falls behind ASEAN peers in terms of affordability of information and communication (ICT) services. 

For its part, the government has recognized this. In its National Broadband Plan, the government has clearly stated that it wants to ensure an “inclusive” broadband infrastructure, one that is relevant and accessible to all segments of the society, including the marginalized sectors, and is affordable.

SPEED. With the government’s focus on improving access, Philippines has a unique opportunity to address another key issue, that of speed. According to Akamai’s Q1 2017 State of the Internet report, Philippines had the lowest average connection speeds among all surveyed Asia Pacific countries/regions, at 5.5 Mbps.

Our current government has approved a plan to deploy a national broadband network at an estimated cost of $1.5B to $4.0B (P77B to P200B) over the next three to five years. This presents a great opportunity for the country to deploy state-of-the art infrastructure, one that is ready to leverage technologies like 5G, and leapfrog more developed nations. 

The 5G network is expected to offer new capabilities in high speed connectivity, both for mobile and fixed broadband services. This will open up huge amount of opportunities for consumers, businesses and the government. For consumers, they will able to access more content and services online, and do so faster and more cheaply. This, in turn, will allow businesses to cater to consumers’ growing demands and also monetize new products and services. Finally, for the government, it opens up opportunities to provide enhanced citizen services across the country at relatively lower costs.

SECURITY. As online access improves, more people and devices come online, and digital transformation gathers pace across the country, it will be crucial to ensure that the infrastructure is secure to provide safeguards against any cyberattacks. 

The scale of the challenge on this front is massive. According to the recent Cisco 2018 Asia Pacific Security Capabilities Benchmark Study, 43 percent of companies in Philippines receive more than 5,000 security alerts per day. 

However, security professionals in the country are grappling with delivering an efficient, coordinated response to the alerts. The report highlighted that only 51 percent of threats are actually investigated. And of those threats that are investigated and found to be legitimate, only 51 percent are actually acted upon. 

To address this challenge cybersecurity needs to be an intrinsic part of all things digital, not an afterthought. To achieve this, all stakeholders need to work together in a coordinated manner. Businesses need to raise awareness about the issue with their staff, have proper processes in place on how to deal with cyberattacks and deploy the right technologies to help identify, block or address any attacks.

Regulators need to design policies and laws that will deter malicious actors from taking the risk of launching such attacks. They also need to ensure strict implementation of these to show intent. Finally, we need to develop local cybersecurity talent. There is huge shortage of talent in the sector and it is critical that we develop local capabilities so that we have the manpower to support the country’s digital drive in a sustainable manner for years to come.

If the abovementioned factors are addressed properly, Philippines can add a fourth S to its digital transformation journey – Success. The inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, said that “the future is still so much bigger than the past.” There is already so much potential in Philippines, we must simply learn to harness it and create an enabling environment for true digital transformation to happen. 

Photo shows a young student learning code using the game Minecraft.

Many of the major scientific and technological breakthroughs were made by or discovered by women. Ada Lovelace for example, is known in the information technology world as the first programmer using code. She developed an algorithm intended to be executed by the first modern computer known as the Analytical Engine. Madamé Marie Curie her findings on radioactivity. Three women, mathematician Katherine Johnson, aerospace engineer Mary Jackson and human computer and mathematician Dorothy Vaughan helped map the crucial formulas needed to get a manned spaceship into earth’s orbit preparatory to the moon landing. Their exploits made into a movie called “Hidden Figures.”

Women definitely have a place in science and technology. And to forward this idea, technology leader Microsoft, in celebration of the International Women’s Month, launched the #MakeWhatsNext campaign, aimed at encouraging young women to pursue careers in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM).

“We want to change the way young women view STEM by letting them envision how technology, science, engineering can be tools used to solve global challenges; how their interests today could turn into a job of the future,” Dr. Daiana Beitler, Philanthropies Director, Microsoft Asia said.

DIGIGIRLZ 2018. To effect this initiative, Microsoft gathered over 200 female Filipina learners from various schools for DigiGirlz 2018—designed inspire young women to pursue careers in the field of STEM.

 “The Philippines is one of the most gender equal countries in the world and is in fact the only Asian country in the top ten of the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap report in 2017. With DigiGirlz, Microsoft seeks not just to further improve gender equality in the country, but also to empower women to do and achieve more with technology,” Hans Bayaborda, Managing Director, Microsoft Philippines explained.

The program aimed to; 1) Increase awareness about what we, together with our partners, are doing to reduce the gender gap in STEM; 2) Influence audience to believe that STEM can lead to exciting and meaningful career paths, by enabling them to tackle big challenges impacting people and the world; 3) Empower audience with resources to learn about computer science and STEM career paths.

“We’re inviting girls to explore their passions further and gain insights from LinkedIn on how to make their dream job a reality. To make it happen, we are introducing all girls, including those from underserved communities, to female role models from different industries as well as hands-on, purpose-driven experiences where STEM concepts are linked to real-life situations,” Beitler said.

GIRLS WILL CODE. Isabel Sieh is 15 years old. She is proficient in Java, C++ and is starting out with Python. These are programming languages that may be alien to many, but is slang to her. At her age she is considered as the youngest programmer in the country. Sieh shared the story of how she founded her company, “Girls Will Code” when she was 11. She spoke of how her love for coding opened the door for other young girls to break the barrier and pursuit a career in STEM. Her company, encourages young women to code debunking most of the myths surrounding the field.

The 200 female learners in attendance had the chance to hear other stories of prominent female figures in various fields at the Asia Pacific College. Deputy Speaker of the House of Representative Sharon Garin enlightened the young girls as she shared her experiences working in a male-dominated environment. She reminded the students to be brave, to talk louder, study harder and never let gender become a barrier in achieving more. 

“Education is the key to make women free,” she said in the hopes of inspiring the young minds.

Women from Microsoft also shared their own personal stories of empowerment. Microsoft Philippines’ OCP director Eileen Ong encouraged more girls to not be bound by gender stereotypes and pursue a career in STEM. 

Clarissa Segismundo, Microsoft Education Programs Lead, shared the value of taking risks, of the difference between learning-it-all and knowing-it all, and of the importance of finding your purpose.

The plenary also covered the importance of inclusion and diversity; how technology is making waves to equalize people with disability. The message? DigiGirlz of today who will become the women of tech tomorrow, will carry the torch to invent something that will eventually benefit the world.

(LESS THAN AN) HOUR OF CODE. In addition to the plenary, the young women were invited to envision their careers, acquire new skills, and see the jobs of tomorrow related to STEM through coding sessions, soft skill workshops, and interactive demos on AI, Coding, and HoloLens. They experienced hands on coding by doing Minecraft’s Hour of Code with most learners finishing the coding session in less than hour!

“The stereotype that only men can excel in the tech and engineering industries is wrong. In this digital age, the future career opportunities will be in STEM, and we have a responsibility to encourage and support young women to follow this path. By choosing a career in STEM, young women and men will achieve their true potential and help change the world,” Wendy Johnstone, Microsoft General Manager, Marketing and Operations concluded.

To learn more about #MakeWhatsNext, visit www.makewhatsnext.com. To find out more about Microsoft Philanthropies’ initiatives in the Philippines, search for microsoft-philanthropies. – Raymond G.B. Tribdino

http://malaya.com.ph/business-news/special-features/microsoft-celebrates-int%E2%80%99l-women%E2%80%99s-month-how-stem-can-make-pinays

IN today’s age of data overload, organizations now are urged to take on valuable steps in taking good care of their client’s private data. This directive is integral, especially for businesses here in the Philippines, since the National Privacy Commission (NPC) recently ignited its campaign to penalize all the violators of the Republic Act 10173, otherwise known as the Data Privacy Act of 2012.

Since it took effect on September 9, 2016, the comprehensive and strict privacy legislation mandates the “protection of the fundamental human right of privacy and communication while ensuring the free-flow of information to promote innovation and growth.” While it applies to individuals and legal entities that process personal information in the country, it should also be implemented by global businesses with equipment based in the Philippines. The act further applies to the processing of personal information of any Filipino regardless of where they reside.

For those who are not yet compliant, the question now is: Is it too late for them to adhere to it? As of writing, preparations for the data privacy act is past crunch time. In fact, NPC’s campaign to inspect and check the compliance of companies across industries is now in full blast. Thus, a hasty action is necessary—or else, a non-complaint may face a sanction of up to three years in jail, (for officials), and fines amounting to P2M.

To ensure compliance and avoid compromising the personal data of their clients, NPC noted five pillars that organizations should consider. Reviewing these points are crucial, especially for those who are not yet compliant, as a guide to monitor to know their status of amenableness.

Commit to comply. Companies that deal with client’s personal information are required to designate a data protection officer, who will be accountable for compliance with the rules and regulations related to data protection and privacy.

Know your risks. A privacy impact assessment is mandated so that businesses can institute proper organizational and technical security measures. This evaluation should identify the company’s processes, as well as the risks and threats associated with them.

Be accountable. Organizations should create their privacy management program by writing a security manual that will align everyone in the same direction in facilitating compliance with the data privacy act. This manual will also come useful in mitigating the impacts in case of a data breach.

Demonstrate your compliance. Upon the creation of the data privacy program, it must be implemented. As it necessitates, it should be assessed, reviewed, and even revised continuously. Of course, training for security officers must also be conducted.

Be prepared for a breach. All personal information controllers and processors should implement a security incident management policy. This policy is for managing security incidents, including data breaches. This rule also says that upon the discovery of the breach, organizations must conduct an initial assessment, mitigate its impact, and notify the affected parties, as well as the NPC, within 72 hours of discovery.

As a way of speeding up compliance, it will be beneficial to integrate security solutions, employee training and even hiring external data privacy services to your organization. While there are many systems integrators present in the country, it pays to hire someone that uses a methodology that works based on the five basic principles of information security. It includes confidentiality, availability, accessibility, authentication/authorization, and accountability/non-repudiation.

Another consideration would be the kind of solutions that they offer since it must be able to tailor fit with the organizations' environment so that it can tackle their network, data, information, and user security requirements. There are other features that the integrator must also offer, like the 24/7 customer service, among others.

At Fujitsu Philippines, we dedicate to assist organizations to comply with the standards. With over four decades of experience, it is always our commitment to work with all stakeholders in protecting personal data and privacy, which in turn can contribute to shaping a better and safer tomorrow for the country.