PhilCeC Academy partners during the LOI signing at Manila Pen

Maria Teresa Camba, Director for NCC Field Operations of CICT and Program Head of the Philippine CeC Program said “the academy will be a consortium of capability building institutions involved in the delivery of ICT4D and CeC related training programs”. The collaboration is expected to consolidate and build upon the strength of various similar efforts in the country.

In seven (7) regional consultation workshops conducted in key cities in the country and in the national strategic planning workshop on the drafting of the Philippine Community eCenter Roadmap, the need for capacity building of CeC managers and staff emerged as a major sustainability and efficiency concern. Presently, there are about 800 community ecenters/telecenters in the country. This excludes the over 2,600 internet-connected high schools which are potential CeCs.

The role of community e-center managers is critical in telecenter planning and objective setting, development and deployment of technology and services, and in ensuring that the community puts the information and services transmitted from telecenters into productive use. Equally important is addressing the issue of telecenter sustainability, and the telecenter manager is responsible for crafting practicable business models to sustain telecenter operations.

Recognizing all these, the Philippine Community eCenter Roadmap for 2008-2010 has identified “to ensure the availability of competent CeC knowledge workers” as a major goal, and the establishment of a Philippine CeC Academy as the strategy by which this can be realized. Telecentre.org, a social investment program of Canada’s International Development Research Centre, Microsoft and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, is a major partner in this initiative. Camba added that “telecentre.org has also supported the CICT in the drafting of the CeC Roadmap, the activation of the PhilCeCNet and the development of the CeC portal.”

Aside from CICT and telecentre.org, the Development Academy of the Philippines, Asian Institute of Journalism and Communication, National Telehealth Center, University of the Philippines-Open University, Phil Rice- Open Academy for Philippine Agriculture, Intel Technology Philippines Incorporated and Microsoft Philippines Incorporated, are the founding members/ partners of the Academy.