ICT Partnership benefits STI BSIT students

STI has already accomplished 2 out of 3  goals I set last June 2015. I came up with these goals after I attended the ICT BPM( Information technology and business processing management) Conference Expo 2015 at Marriot Hotel last June 3 – 4, 2015. 

1st Goal- to provide relevant trainings to our 4th year BSIT students through OJT program ( with pay and allowances )

In the conference, I met Mr. Darwin Moises, Senior Manager of Lexmark Cebu who is a graduate of ATENEO-REGIS Mba-Cebu. He told me that Lexmark is accepting ICT OJTs. He endorsed me to Ms. Bryony Paige C. Cabigas, HR Sourcing Specialist / Linkages Coordinator. Fortunately, among 8 students who were interviewed, Mr. Rodney Maniego was able to get in.

Ms. Bryony( Lexmark ), Mr. Rodney Maniego(4th Year BSIT OJT), me

Signing of MOA and Partnership Agreement

I also met in the conference, HR MANAGER of Teradyne, also an IT company and 2 senior IT managers to discuss about their OJT requirements for IT. They urgently need two IT OJT. They will give 75% ( P255) of the Cebu minimum wage as allowance, 30 per day meal allowance and housing allowance. Two of our top BSIT 4th year students were able to get in: Mr. Brylle Orita and Mr. Wendel Madjus.

Signing our MOA with Ms. Ruby W. Diaz, HR supervisor

( standing From L to R)-Ms. Cheryl Gallo, STI OJT coordinator, Mr. Orito and Mr. Madjus( OJT students ), Teradyne IT head in Cebu Joey Jallorina and Teradyne IT Solutions Analyst Peter Versan Setier, me and Ms. Ruby, HR of Teradyne 

I stayed one more day in Cebu( June 5 ) to meet the HR of Kyocera and Icomm. Both signified their support to our OJT program. Requirements shall be submitted this September in preparation for their October OJT of our 4^th year students. Kyocera offers allowances same as Terradyne but Icomm does not offer. What they guarantee is our students will get relevant trainings and possible employment after graduation if they perform well. 7 BSIT students passed the interview in Kyocera and now getting relevant training.

OJT student in KYOCERA - Rad Roa, Jashmin Acogido, Mary Rose Abril, Ms. April Pedida, Ms. Karen Valencia, Ms. Cheryl Gallo ( STI OJT Coordinator), Mark Gindoy and Rodgiemar.

MOA signing with Kyocera President, Nobuyasu Mori and Corporate Management Division Manager, Jennifer J. Broce.

Click the link of the write-up regarding partnership of STI with Teradyne.

STI College-Ormoc partners with Teradyne for its ICT-OJT program

2nd Goal - to organize a company visit to top IT companies with our 3rd year BSIT students and a fellowship night with the ALUMNI working in CEBU

January 11 to 13, 2016- With our strong partnership with these IT companies, STI had the opportunity to bring our 3rd year BSIT students to CEBU's top IT companies like Kyocera, Lexmark and Accenture. They also attended STI National Youth Convention in CEBU last January 12, 2016 at CAP Building in CEBU.

Thanks to Lorraine Travel and Tours for the well-coordinated 3-day travel.

BSIT students with the NYC speakers

At University of San Carlos' computer laboratory

At Kyocera

Cheris Singcol, 3rd year BSIT student, won the O+ mobile phone grand prize 

With Paul ( our very intelligent, accommodating and jolly tour guide - so satisfied with your services Sir Paul), our dean Engr. Sheena Muyuela and STI former IT faculty and STI alumni who is now IT professor in USC Ms. Angie Ceniza

With my ever reliable NYC team, Ms. Leizel Grande and Engr Sheena Joy Muyuela

With the alumni working at Accenture

Students listening to the video presentation of Accenture

While in CEBU, we had  a fellowship with Alumni working in CEBU to meet the 3rd year students. They shared tips on how they survived the thesis project while in college, their journey as IT professionals in CEBU. It was a very engaging event for both our Alumni and students.

With our alumni ( L to R). Mr. Julius Canillo, Ms. Angie Ceniza, Ms. Leizel Grande ( STI Faculty ), Dean Sheena Muyuela, me, Mr. Caracuel, Mr. Maxander and Mr. Nilo Luansing

Group picture with the alumni and STI BSIT 3rd year students.

3rd Goal -  BSIT OJT students shall be absorbed by these IT companies because of their good performance

I am hopeful that our ICT partners will see the potential of our students and give them job offers after their OJT program.  We will find out in April (end of their OJT program) if this goal will happen.

My reflection :

I can be a networker who markets our qualified graduates with an aspiration that these people whom the school helped will eventually give back to their alma mater and to Ormoc City. I see them as the future consultants or IT top leaders helping Region VIII to be the next IT hub in the Visayas.

I would like to share one of the students' feedback on his experience from the tour, Mr. Keen Dulojan, our SSG President:

Measure and Manage Project - Household

For a family of 5 with 2 helpers, I find P5,000 a week actual food expense not reasonable and can still be reduced if :
1) There is a menu plan for the cook to follow
2) There is a budget and actual cost template for monitoring purposes.

So, to start my year and as a believer of "You can't manage what you don't measure", I prepared a 3-week menu plan for my cook to follow and a budget monitoring template to record the list of items and actual cost.

3 Week Menu plan ( I gave my cook the liberty to plan our breakfast. What I included is only the lunch for my kids-they eat their lunch in school, my husband and I and our dinner. Every Sunday, I scheduled to eat out as our bonding time with family my family but again we have to stick with our budget not more P700.

You may notice that some are color-coded so it could guide my cook what menu to prepare good for 2 meals( we can just reheat it ). In this way, we can save on gasul and my cook can do other important tasks.

Also, I ask her to buy in bulk or volume to lessen her time going to the market. Except for fish, shell and veggies that need to be served fresh, others like pork, beef can be bought in bulk and stock them in the fridge.

For monitoring of expenses, I designed a template for her to record all her expenses.

On a weekly basis, she has to record all the expenses and another sheet is provided for the breakdown of items like breakfast food items. I provided her an envelope where to keep the receipts for auditing purposes. For the rice and gasul, my monitoring is different as it includes the last date purchased and total kilos of the last purchased. In this way, I can monitor our consumption in a given period. I provided her the template good for 3 weeks so she can reproduce it every time she runs out of copies.

As to the money, I am using one of my ATM - Debit card for this. This is entirely for our household spendings that need cash payment. My cook has been with us for more than 7 years already so I can entrust her the pincode. I give her my ATM every time she needs to replenish her budget.

To empower my children, I assigned the task to my eldest daughter to do the weekly auditing while my 14 year old son is tasked to buy every Saturday our breakfast food items to be consumed the following week.

My reflection: Meal planning and budgeting are important in any household. Our house help needs guidance on what food to prepare and how much budget is allocated. Regular monitoring and review of the actual spending can help reduce expenses and prevent possible misappropriation of funds. Involvement of children in meal planning, monitoring and budgeting is a good life skills training for them.

I will keep you posted on the result of this "measure and manage project" of mine after a month. I hope the result will help me manage our financial resources more effectively.

Happy new year!