DOST to launch Smarter Philippine initiative

AS PART of the national thrust for inclusive growth, the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) will roll out its Smarter Philippines program starting with the 10 cities being considered for the Asia Pacific Economic Council (APEC) Summit hosting on 2015.

“We thought that for the 10 cities and provinces identified to the APEC Summit hosting, implementing the “Smarter Cities or Province” concept will benefit them to be able to host the activities well,” said assistant secretary Alejandro Melchor III of DOST.

The 10 areas identified by the APEC Summit committee to host the activities are Manila, Clark, Subic, Tagaytay City, Boracay, Iloilo City, Bacolod City, Cebu City, Legazpi City and Davao City.

Melchor said that the program with ICT as its key driver would be implemented to maintain the average gross product growth of 7 percent, the target growth to effectively alleviate poverty.

He said this would be a way for the different stakeholders including the government to ride the positive wave brought about by the country’s strong economy and sustain these growth.

“The Philippines will be the 16th largest economy by 2015 according to the growth map of the Stanley Morgan report. Now they are talking about the next level economies which the Philippines is at the top of the list. HSBC on the other hand forecasted that China, India and the Philippines will be the three fastest growing economies,” said Melchor, citing the favorable decision to launch the Smart City program.

He also cited the Philippines being part of the new elite economic cluster called TIPs, which include Turkey and Indonesia.

Melchor said a smart city or province would provide an ecosystem where all parts of society would be doing something smart or efficient.

“Use of ICT and Science and Technology in the processes that will help achieve efficiency. For the public sector we are looking to provide tools, services and infrastructure that will help our people grow,” said Melchor.

The six core areas of the Smarter Philippines program include smarter government, smarter economy, smarter environment, smarter mobility, smarter living and smarter people.

According to Melchor through the core areas, the government expects to speed up economic growth./REporter Aileen Garcia-Yap