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Silicon Gulf is a nickname for Davao City and extends to the Davao Region, at Southern Mindanao, Philippines. The nickname refers to the growing number of information technology and IT enabled services (ITES) companies sprouting in the area. The name was adapted from Silicon Valley, referring to the high tech cluster in the San Francisco Bay Area in northern California.
Contents
- Origin
- ICT BPO facilities
- Damosa IT Park
- Landco Corporate Center
- Davao City
- Associationsorganizations
- Universities and colleges
- IT enabled services and training
- References
Davao Region is one of the regions of the Philippines, on the southeastern portion of Mindanao. Davao Region consists of four provinces — Compostela Valley, Davao, Davao del Sur, and Davao Oriental. The region encloses the Davao Gulf and its regional center is Davao City.
Silicon Gulf is part of the Philippine Cyber Corridor.
Origin
The Silicon Gulf Initiative was officially announced on October 6, 2006, by Reuters Digital Vision Program fellow Jason Banico, who coined the nickname, during the ICT Davao, Inc. launch at the Royal Mandaya Hotel in Davao City. Aimed at addressing the region's Brain drain problem, the initiative emphasized radical collaboration between government, academia and industry in harnessing technical talent and information-oriented manpower as the key driving force in transforming the city from an agricultural/industrial economy to a knowledge-based one.
The primary objective of the Silicon Gulf Initiative is to build Davao City's information and communications technology (ICT) capacity through developing talent in the areas of "technopreneurship", IT project management, and core technical skills.
ICT-BPO facilities
Damosa IT Park
The ICT park zone being developed by Damosa Land Incorporated is composed of 22,983 square meters (about 300,000 sq ft) of land along J.P. Laurel Avenue which would accommodate two information technology buildings; data building; commercial and a utility building that with an unlimited power supply.
The primary stage of development involves the establishment of the ICT building covering some 1,326 square meters (about 15,500 sq ft) of land along J.P. Laurel Avenue. Ricardo Floirendo, Damosa Land Inc. is a local counterpart of the Ayalas in Davao.
Based on their plans, the IT building would be installed with high-speed fiber-optic telecommunication backbone and high-speed international gateway facility or wide-area network.
Landco Corporate Center
Landco Corporate Centre is along JP Laurel Avenue, Bajada, Davao City. Among its amenities and facilities is a global integrated communication system (GICS) with structured cabling system for multi-media applications.
It installed the first building management system (BMS) in Mindanao which monitors and controls the elevators, the fuel and water pumps, and the main entry. The building features sophisticated fire safety and security systems, three high-speed elevators, a grand lobby and hallways.
Davao City
Given its potentials to become a “center of excellence” in information communications and technology (ICT), Davao City is declared as an IT HUB area in the Philippines by the National Telecommunications Office per memorandum # 05-05-200.
A study made in 2002 by the Asian Institute of Management through a project called the Philippine Cities Competitiveness Program revealed that the city is the most competitive city in the Philippines (Metro Cities Category) with the lowest cost of doing business.
Moreover, using a scorecard developed by the Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT), Davao City ranks high as an attractive ICT investment location in the country.
In the area of workforce potential, the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) XI reported that as of January 2005 out of 76 colleges and universities in the region, Davao City has 42, three of which belonging to the Top 20 in the country: Ateneo de Davao University, University of the Immaculate Conception and University of Mindanao.
About 14 colleges and universities in the region were granted the PAASCU, PACUCOA, and AACUP accreditations, assuring that quality graduates are produced each year.
Moreover, a total of 15,731 graduates were recorded for the school year 2004-2005 with the following top courses: Education (2,715 graduates), Commerce (2,707 graduates) and Nursing (2,241 graduates).
In the area of telecommunications infrastructure, Davao City has available high-speed digital subscribers lines (DSLs) that can support 24x7 operations. The presence of major telecommunications companies, i.e., Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company, BayanTel, Globe Telecom, Digitel, Meridian Telekoms, Inc. and PT&T can provide such services from fiber-optic links, wireless broadband, to simple and triple redundancy.
In real estate, Davao City has huge open spaces that can be developed into an IT park or building. There are five major hotels and more than 10 business inns.
In vendor support, large vendors in Manila and Cebu are now in Davao City to cater the requirements of local companies in hardware and software: GlobalChips Technologies, Co; Trinet Multimedia Systems Corporation; Micro-D International, etc.
In power infrastructure, Davao City has the most stable power supply and one the cheapest rates in the country. Its power utility company, the Davao Light and Power Company has a backup power supply of 44 MW at its Bajada Power Plant. In the last five years, there was no recorded incidence of massive power shortage and blackouts.
In transportation, a total of 189,621 motor vehicles in the region were registered in the Land Transportation Office (LTO) XI in 2005 distributed as follows: motorcycles & tricycles - 109,142; Utility vehicles - 44,118; Taxi/Cars - 18,983; Trucks – 11,310; Sports Utility Vehicles – 4,045; Trailers – 1,265 and Buses – 758. Davao City and nearby provinces have more than 2,000 aircon/non-aircon taxi units equipped with 2-way radio system running 24 hours a day.
In local incentives, Davao City is the first local government unit in Mindanao to provide incentives to investors in the city.
For quality of life, Davao City was adjudged as the most liveable city in the Philippines and included in the Top 20 in Asia.
Associations/organizations
Silicon Gulf has a number of ICT organizations, and they all are under an umbrella organization, ICT Davao.
ICT Davao Incorporated, also known as ICT Davao and IDI, is the umbrella organization of all information and communication technology groups hosted by Davao City.
With the assistance of the Davao City Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the ICT Council of Davao was born in 2002 to champion the needs of the industry. It adopted its new name ICT Davao in 2006 and has revitalized its membership which now includes the ICT educational and technical training institutions, the sub-sector association of IT-enabled and BPO services such as contact centers, transcription providers, FOSS users, IT software and hardware vendors, i-Café operators and inventors.