The Filipino Talent is Great!

Last Monday we were fortunate to be invited by DICT to present a proof of concept on the automated election system since President Duterte instructed DICT to look for an alternative on the current provider of the election system in the country. We presented (Bapplware) on the 2nd batch along with INDRA, VOATZ and Smartmatic. All presented their own pitch and I thought both VOATZ and Bapplware did well. And we were the only one who did a live demo aside from the demo of DICT’s proof of concept that USEC Rio presented in the morning.

After the 20min presentation for each of the presentors we did a panel interview A.K.A. fireside chat. We were answering the questions and the moderator on the last portion read the questions coming twitter / slido app and since I was the only local guy on the panel I became a little bit emotional when a one of the questions / comment said that “Why is DICT so obsessed with local vendors? Why are we putting our elections in the hands of local vendors? Foreigners are more credible on making election systems than local ones….”

I cannot let it go since a Filipino is putting that kind of questioning considering that whoever that was is also a Filipino. The Filipino Talent is not under or over anyone but we are more comparable to any talent in the world specially in IT and Engineering I don't want to boast my credentials but it is a fact that Filipinos are skilled, talented and has the grit to flourish in any field. There are a few examples that I can mention:

1. Dado Banatao - came from humble beginnings and is touted as the asian Steve Jobs because he invented the system logic chip in PC XT/AT, S3 Graphic that accelerated the monitors, GPS and radio frequency technology that even iTunes is using.
2. Peter Valdes - was a co-founder of TIVOLI systems that IBM bought for a staggering 734M USD back in the 80s
3. Joey Gurango - who was one of the first programmers of excel and one of the creators of Great Plains then sold to Microsoft that later became Microsoft Dynamics
4. Jonathan de Luzuriaga - co-founded Spring Valley, the silicon valley of the Philippines that is located in Roxas City

There are a lot more!

In our everyday life the people in accenture, headstrong, hp, rcgit, ust global, ayala, globe, sunlife, gfi softwares, trend micro, telus, amkor, IMI and a lot more are heroes because believe it or not the best R&D are done in the Philippines and these talents are 100% Filipino so don’t belittle the Filipino Talent.

For LOVE of GOD and COUNTRY.

I am proud to be a Filipino Talent!!!