Dr. Roberto L. Saladar, Director of Aklan State University – Information and Communication Technology (ASU-ICT) Center, has attended the SME Entrepreneur Workshop at Taipei, Taiwan on July 17–20, 2006. The workshop was funded by the Taiwan International Cooperation and Development Fund (ICDF) under the program of APEC Digital Opportunity Center (ADOC) in collaboration with the Commission on Information and Communication Technology - Human Capital Development Group (CICT-HCDG) in the Philippines.
Group photo during the opening program at Taiwan ICDF
The objectives of the workshop are to help the ADOC partner member economies efficiently utilize and cultivate information and communication technologies, actively participate in e-Commerce activities and realize digital opportunity development.
The workshop was designed to assist the ADOC partner member economies develop their e-commerce business and explore possible opportunities so that new income resources can be found with an ultimate aim of improving “peoples’ living quality”.
The workshop was attended by eighteen (18) participants from the different ADOC partner member economies, namely; Chile, Indonesia, Peru, Papua New Guinea, Philippines and Vietnam. It was also attended by representatives of Chinese, Taipei e-Commerce successful entrepreneurs.
The four Filipino participants and the Taiwan Junior Consultants (Graduate Students)
The Philippines was represented by four (4) participants from different agencies namely; Miss Dianne April Aquino Delfino (Department of Trade and Industry), Dr. Roberto Limas Saladar (Aklan State University), Mrs. Angelita Lumbang Nicolas (Commission on Information and Communication Technology) and Mr. John Lorenz R. Belanio (West Visayas State University).
The workshop activities include lectures, group tours and case study analysis. The lectures covered the following topics: Global Trends in e-Commerce; Strategic Alliance and Marketing Management; e-Commerce Entrepreneurship: Key Success Factors; e-Farm Business Model and Strategies. The group tour includes visiting the Nankang Software Park, Digital Content Institute, Taipei Country Yingge Ceramics Museum and YZU Innovation Center.
Taiwan is a beautiful and progressive country. I think, Philippines is about twenty (20) years behind Taiwan in terms of the development of SMEs. Almost 99% of their SMEs have access to the Internet that enables them to operate the e-Commerce and e-Business efficiently”. Dr. Saladar said.
Closing program: receiving certificate and token from the representative of TaiwanICDF and ADOC Director
To integrate the newly acquired knowledge from the workshop, Dr. Saladar is planning to conduct an SME seminar in the province of Aklan to roll out the concept of e-Commerce and e-Business learned from Taiwan. He is also setting up a special project on website hosting in which the Aklan State University could be one of the e-Business Portals for SMEs in support to e-Services and other services provided by the Business Assistance Center (BAC) to the SMEs in Aklan.
In line with SMEs, Dr. Saladar together with Dr. Benny A. Palma, the university president will be attending the 2-day National Consultative Meeting to set up the “SMEs Assistance Center” for all State Universities and Colleges (SUCs) who are identified by the CICT-HCDG as Regional IT Centers (RICs), and those universities and colleges who have an existing partnership with Development Bank of the Philippines - Sustainable Partnership for Energizing Entrepreneurship Development (DBP-SPEED) Project . The meeting will be held on August 16-17, 2006 at the CICT Building, U.P. Diliman, Quezon City. The meeting is organized by the CICT-HCDG under the eQuality Program in support to the implementation of RICs in different regions.
Farewell photo with participants and faculty from Yuan Zen University
In addition, Dr. Saladar is establishing a linkage exchange program of faculty and student with Dr. Tsung P. Perng, President of Yuan Ze University in Taiwan to upgrade teaching competence of faculty and enhance learning capability of students of the Aklan State University.
He stresses “knowledge is the key asset of a business”. In general, he mentioned that the workshop helped and enriched his knowledge in viewing the local economic environment in the Philippines, which is crucial to development of effective and efficient entrepreneurs and marketing strategies through the use of e-Commerce and e-Business Models.
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