Silicon Gulf

.

Davao Region is one of the regions of the Philippines, located on the southeastern portion of Mindanao. Davao Region consists of four provinces, namely: 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 by Jason Banico in October 6, 2006, during the ICT Davao, Inc. launch at the Royal Mandaya Hotel in Davao City. 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.

Its primary objective is to build Davao City's ICT capacity through developing talent in the areas of "technopreneurship", IT project management, and core technical skills.

ilicon Gulf Cyberparks

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 located along J.P. Laurel Avenue which would accommodate two information technology buildings; data building; commercial and a utility building that would have 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. senior vice-president, said the call center company Link2Support, which also operates in Cagayan de Oro City and Manila, has committed to operate in the building in November. He said the company would put a 200-seater center that would boost the outsourcing business here.

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. Floirendo said they would initially be investing P20-million for the first phase of the ICT zone.

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.

As a modern metropolis bustling with life, verve and color, situated in a typhoon-free zone with a land area of 2,440 km² touted as one of the world’s largest, recent study made by the Asian Institute of Management through a project called “Philippine Cities Competitiveness Program” revealed that the City is the Most Competitive City in the Philippines (Urban 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 a total of 42, three (3) of which belonging to the Top 20 in the country namely: Ateneo de Davao University, University of the Immaculate Conception and University of Mindanao.

About 14 colleges and universities in the region were also granted the PAASCU, PACUCOA, and AACUP accreditations, hence, assuring that quality graduates are produced each year in many higher education.

Moreover, a total of 15,731 graduates were recorded for the schoolyear 2004-2005 with the following top courses: Education (with 2,715 graduates), Commerce, (with 2,707 graduates) and Nursing (with 2,241 graduates).

In the area of telecommunications infrastructure, Davao City has an available high-speed Digital Subscribers Lines (DSL) that can support 24x7 operations. The presence of major telecommunications companies i.e., Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company, BayanTel, Globe, Digitel, Meridian Telekoms, Inc. and PT&T can provide such services from fiber-optic links, wireless broadband, to simple and triple redundancy.

In the area of real estate, Davao City has huge open spaces that can be developed into an IT Park or IT Building. There are five (5) major hotels and more than 10 business inns.

In the area of vendor support, large vendors in Manila and Cebu are now in Davao City to cater the requirements of local companies in terms of hardware and software namely: GlobalChips Technologies, Co; Trinet Multimedia Systems Corporation; Micro-D International, etc.

In the area of 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 5 years, there was no recorded incidence of massive power shortage and blackouts.

In the area of 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 terms of 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

* Association of Computer Businesses in Mindanao (ACBM)
* Association of Solution Integrators in Davao, Inc (ASID)
* Business Process Outsourcing Davao (BPO-Davao)
* Council of Deans in I.T. Education (CDITE-Region XI)
* DabaweGNU
* Davao Inventors Association
* Davao IT Organization (DITO)
* Davao Technical Expert for Computer Hardware & Software Support, Inc (TechSupport)
* ICT Real Estate Association of Davao (ICTREAD)
* Internet Cafe Association of Davao, Inc. (ICAD)
* MIS-Corporate Davao
* Philippine Society of I.T Educators (PSITE-Region XI)

Universities and Colleges

*Holy Cross of Davao College
*San Pedro College
*Brokenshire College
*Davao Doctors College
*AMA Computer University
*Ateneo de Davao University
*University of Mindanao
*University of Immaculate Conception
*University of the Philippines, Mindanao
*University of Southeastern Philippines

Companies

IT-Enabled Services and Training

* Callbox Inc [http://callboxinc.com]
* Davao First Transcription Center Corporatin (DFTCC) [http://Thequaliserv.com]

* G-Com Ltd.
* JIB E-Academy
* Link2Support
* MTC Academy
* Nakayama Technology Corporation [http://www.nkym.com.ph]
* Outsource IT to Philippines [http://www.outsourceit2philippines.com]
* PeopleSupport
* TeamAssist

Application Development and Web Design

* Automata Interactive
* Blinque Tech
* Cerveo Computer Systems
* CubePixels
* Hubport Interactive [http://www.hubportinteractive.com]
* ids-Media
* KAI, Inc.
* KwikRelease Studios
* Lane Systems
* Mynd Tech Management Services [http://www.myndconsulting.com]
* PhilAmerican Global Solutions, Inc.
* PixelWeaver

IT Parks and Incubators

* 3G/Brokenshire Davao IT Incubation Center
* Damosa IT Park
* NCCC ICT Pavilion

Technology centers internationally

*Silicon Valley, USA
*Bangalore, India (The Silicon Valley of India)
*Campinas, São Paulo, São José dos Campos, São Carlos (The Silicon Valley of Brazil).
*Canada's Technology Triangle - Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
*Casablanca Technopark, Casablanca, Morocco
*Chausseestrasse, Berlin, Germany (was called the "Silicon Valley" of Germany in 2000)
*Chennai, India
*Dresden, Germany (The Silicon Valley of Germany)
*Dubai Internet City, Dubai, UAE
*Dublin, Ireland (The Silicon Valley of Europe, due to its high number of technological EMEA centres)
*Melbourne, Australia (Digital Harbour at Docklands)
*Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico (The Silicon Valley of Mexico)
*High Tech Campus Eindhoven - Eindhoven, Netherlands
*HITEC City, Hyderabad, India
*Hsinchu Science Park - Hsinchu, Taiwan
*The Knowledge Corridor - between Pune and Bombay, Maharashtra, India
*M4 corridor - between London and Reading, United Kingdom
*Multimedia Super Corridor - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
*Parc Tecnològic del Vallès - Barcelona, Spain
*Porto Digital - Recife, Brazil
*Pune, India (The Silicon Plateau of India)
*Silicon Fen - Cambridge, United Kingdom
*Silicon Valley North - National Capital Region around Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
*Silicon Wadi, the High Tech Region from the Israeli city of Ashkelon, to Haifa.
*Smart Village, Cairo, Egypt
*Technopark, Kerala - Kerala, India
*Sophia Antipolis - between Nice and Cannes, France
*ViaSphere Technopark - Yerevan, Armenia
*Wireless Valley - Stockholm, Sweden
*Zelenograd (The Silicon Valley of Russia)
*Zhangjiang High Tech Park, Shanghai, China
*Zhong Guan Cun - Beijing, China
*Z.I.R.S.T. of Meylan - close to Grenoble, France

External links

* [http://www.silicongulf.net Silicon Gulf official website]
* [http://www.silicongulf.net/silicon1.html List of places with "Silicon" names]