PROGRAMS AND PROJECTS


In February 2004, the Advanced Research and Competency Development Institute (or ARCDI) began operations at Northgate Cyberzone (Alabang). ARCDI, a non-stock, non-profit foundation, was borne from work by PEZA, SEIPI, EIAPI and other SMEs, ASTI (of DOST), the EEE Department of UP, the Brain Gain Network (http://www.BGN.org), and various private individuals.

The vision of ARCDI is to make Philippine high-technology companies more globally competitive by providing a venue for world-class professional-level training, advanced research, development and engineering (RD&E), and new venture incubation.

Present activities at ARCDI include:

a. Market focused high-quality Technical Training and Education – Courses for improved productivity, yield, and quality are available care of SEIPI’s ASEMEP to engineers in electronics manufacturing companies. Technologists engaged in RD&E can study or review professional level courses on semiconductors, wireless and RF electronics, embedded systems, and software applications enginering.

b. Collaborative Research, Development and Engineering (RD&E) activities relevant to member companies - The RD&E labs will support the continuing advancement of instructors themselves and provides hands-on lab training to student engineers. The first three labs will focus on wireless communications systems, computing systems and software, and microelectronics design.

c. Sharing of Scarce Resources - such as state-of-the-art laboratories with the required hardware and software, video-conferencing and communication facilities, seminar rooms, and an up-to-date library. Professors in the University of the Philippines-Diliman and other universities have expressed the desire to avail of equipment in other campuses or corporate labs. Corporate engineers are willing to share their resources and in turn use tools and human resource of the academic institutions. Because all these resources are relatively costly for Philippine entities, sharing while respecting intellectual property rights is a win-win proposition.

d. An efficient, high-quality of life, physical Convergence Center for Synergistic Interaction between technopreneurs. Be they engineers & scientists, investors, business service providers, marketing professionals, visionary managers or staffers. Be they Filipino or non-Filipino. Be they locally based, tourists or balik-bayans (the target is to attract the Brain Gain home, the www.BGN.org database will be used to tap these human resources).

e. New Venture Incubation - One of the most desired side effects of such an Institute will be similar to Stanford University’s ability to be the Valley’s magnet for the best engineers from the country and worldwide, for the largest Venture Capital community, and for all other people and services needed to create successful start-up ventures. It is envisioned that ARCDI will successfully anchor the limited number of business service specialists for high-technology such as venture capitalists, IP lawyers, product marketing experts, headhunters, IT infrastructure consultants, and IT cluster real estate developers.

Finally, a response to the oft repeated question: what will differentiate this Institute from previous centers of excellence? While the future is always uncertain, the ARCDI Foundation is structured to be led by private sector stakeholders in a win-win partnership with a visionary group of government industry promoters and leading academic and RD&E institutions. Of course, the proper selection of visionary, expert, tried and tested, principled, and properly-compensated management is key to the successful execution of this vision. Furthermore, a well selected advisory board of Silicon Valley and Japanese high-tech leaders with impeccable credentials will help guide the Institute in wisely using its limited resources and conducting its economically self-sustaining activities. The dream is that ARCDI will create or incubate the first successful Philippine company to list on the NASDAQ with its own branded software or hardware product offering. ARCDI is great news and a warm ray of hope to technopreneurs, indeed. (go ahead, you can now bookmark www.ARCDI.com to stay on top of real high-tech human resource development in the Philippines).

Special mention must be made of founding directors Francis Ferrer (acting President) and Atty. Lilia de Lima, Director General of PEZA, who together led the sponsoring government agency to fund and yet step back to allow a private sector group, many of whom are executives from SEIPI, EIAPI and the Brain Gain Network, to set ARCDI’s industry focused direction. Dr. Delfin (Jay) Sabido, former head of ASTI and now CTO of Ayala Corp’s IMI and EAZIX (www.eazix.com) is also huge supporter of RD&E in the Philippines as the former engine at ASTI that pushed ARCDI’s foundation and now as a private sector director of ARCDI. According to Jay, “ARCDI is a very much needed initiative for the semiconductor and electronics industry of the Philippines to survive and grow. To be world-class, our human resources have to be world-class, and this is what we hope to achieve with ARCDI .”