VICTOR Celebrates 6 Years of Countryside ICT Innovation in Aklan
By Zion Campo, PRO, Bohol ICT Council
Local Information Communications & Technology (ICT) councils around the Philippines are packing their bulgy bags and heading to Aklan this February, not to party on the white sandy beaches of beautiful Boracay but to learn and to network with people in this industry.
Typically, most people associate Aklan with the paradise that is Boracay which has been consistently named as one of the best islands in the world. The sun, the sea, and the sand are what most people travel to Aklan for - to discover and network with people in the industry is way out of anybody’s vocabulary.
A number of ICT champions are headed to Kalibo, Aklan for the sixth year of the VICTOR (Visayas ICT Cluster Organization ) Conference, an annual gathering of ICT councils, industry leaders, government heads and the academe. VICTOR aims to help promote the massive untapped potential of the Visayan Islands as great locations for ICT-enabled jobs, opportunities, and investments.
A large group of dedicated men and women from all over the country, headed by the Visayas ICT Clusters (VICTOR) core group namely Atty. Jocelle Batapa-Sigue from the Bacolod-Negros Occidental Federation for Information and Communications Technology (BNEFIT) also the current Vice President of NICP; Joeven Tansi from Iloilo Federation for Information Technology (IFIT); Jun Saa from Cebu IT-BPM Organization (CIB.O) also a Board of Trustee of NICP, Joanne Phillips from Bohol ICT Council also a Board of Trustee of NICP; Danah Fortunato from the ICT Association of Dumaguete and Negros Oriental; and Gabrielle Calizo-Quimpo from Aklan ICT Council (AicTec) and of course the newly elected National ICT Confederation of the Philippines (NICP) president Antonio Del Carmen.
The event also serves as a platform for NICP (National ICT Confederation of the Philippines) ICT Council members and its partners to have conversations on their successes, best practices, learnings and what more can stakeholders do to support NICP’s vision of creating more jobs and driving innovation in the Philippines’ countryside.
This year, VICTOR is focusing on three major national goals:
- helping local government units jump into the 21st century with e-Governance initiatives
- building sustainable startup environments in different regions
- positioning local communities as prime spots for IT businesses
Alongside the VICTOR Conference, the 4th Creative Congress is also being hosted in the sands of Aklan. The event is peppered with a number of programs, one of those is a 48-hour game hackathon called GameJam organized by the Game Developers Association of the Philippines.
After a long day of talks, the NICP expects to strengthen their relationship with all industry associations and provide everybody with an educational experience that they will bring back to their communities and contribute to the 350,000 new jobs in the countryside the organization plans on capturing.
6th VICTOR and 4th CreaCon is held in partnership with the National ICT Confederation of the Philippines, Aklan ICT Council (AICTeC), Provincial Government of Aklan and the Iloilo Federation for IT (IFIT) and the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), sponsored by Amazon Web Services, Micro Genesis, MYEG Philippines, Southwest Tours (Boracay), INC., PLDT Enterprise, DBP Kalibo, Rosa Foods, Jocyls Foods, Filbake Corporation, Rentillo Enterprises, Buttons and Things, Kalibo Cable TV Network Inc. and Aklan TV Network Inc.
For more information, to sponsor or purchase tickets, visit, https://victorcon.iloilofit.org or contact aklanictcouncil@yahoo.com copy furnish VICTOR Focal officer joeventansi@iloilofit.org Facebook: Visayas ICT Cluster Organization – NICP.
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