DICT’s Tech Education opens employment opportunities

LA TRINIDAD, Benguet -- The Rural Impact Sourcing (RIS) collaborative project of the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) is paving the way for graduates who would like to engage into digital marketing and business process outsourcing in the communities.

The collaboration of the DICT’s Technology Empowerment for Economic Development (Tech4ED) Project and RIS aims to bridge digital gap by providing digital access and informal skills training to the “unserved” and “underserved” communities.

It likewise recognizes the role of the Micro Small Medium Enterprise (MSME) to provide employment opportunities and contribute to economic growth especially within their locality. It will also serve as an avenue to promote the use of e-Commerce by MSME.

Part of the program is the establishment of an RIS hub recently launched in partnership with the provincial government. This will be used as an incubation hub or small IT-BPO Center for graduates or anyone interested in online work or freelancing.

Janelle Dulnuan is one of the graduates of the Rural Empowerment and Impact Sourcing Training in the province having good performance. A nurse by profession, Dulnuan said the course is an additional learning to widen her skill. The RIS training increases people’s hireability by focusing on development and improvement on their ICT skills for employment opportunities.

The training she said boosted her confidence to showcase or apply the learnings in programs and competitions after qualifying for the social enterprise. She was fortunate to find an opportunity for the enterprise venture.

She was able to acquire a P1 million grant together with her team from the Tuklas Innovation Labs, a community-centered innovation project that seeks to find homegrown solutions on disaster risk reduction and management. Her team called ‘Plot and Play’ is one of the 40 beneficiaries nationwide.

The concept of their project is to create board

game software for disasters together with a community which will serve as a pilot area. Her team will work hand in hand with the community in barangay Puguis, La Trinidad, Benguet in order to develop a software that would have an impact. The project starts this March and ends by November this year.

While doing freelance consultancy for a Japanese businessman, she works for her team’s enterprise as she has flexibility of her time schedule. PIA – CAR