"This is like turning the [global] crisis into opportunity. We're leveraging talent in different places and we aim to work with governments and businesses. Our investment would be in people, infrastructure and access," said Janet Klein, director of ISV (Independent Software Vendors) and developer relations at IBM Growth Markets.
Klein said the new innovation center will be built inside the UP-Ayala Techo Hub along Commonwealth Avenue in Quezon City, across the University of the Philippines, where IBM does part of its BPO (business process outsourcing) operations.
Klein made the announcement along with Charles Manuel, program director of IBM Strategic Initiatives & IDR Software Group in South Africa, and Oscar Benedict Contreras III, manager of Academic Community and Developer Relations in IBM Philippines.
Following a similar launch in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, IBM executives said the innovation center in the Philippines would be the second in ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) and a third one is being mulled in Vietnam.
"We chose the Philippines because there are about 200,000 developers here and we plan to move the local (software) industry to a higher level value chain," Klein noted.
IBM executives said the innovation center shall serve as the platform to push for the adoption of IBM's SSME (Service, Science, Management and Engineering) curriculum to develop a critical mass of trained professionals for the O&O (offshoring and outsourcing) industry.
"The development of the curriculum is IBM's investment in the Philippine market," Klein said, adding the innovation center is aimed at addressing the needs of ISVs, software developers and the local academic community to be able to provide best-of-breed middleware.
Klein said the innovation center will foster local collaboration and shall help identify the particular technology that makes sense in the local market.
"Whether it would be on Web 2.0, virtualization, Java or open source, we target to produce developers for the next two years at the innovation center," she said.
Klein added the innovation center would also help in developing "21st century skills" among the student/faculty community as they would get access to 40 other IBM innovation labs and offices around the world.
"By 21st century skills, we mean the combination of soft skills and IT skills," she explained. "It's more than just IT skills. It's that ability to talk about technology to business people, other sectors and other cultures."
Contreras said that despite the current global economic crisis, the BPO sector in the Philippines continues to open opportunities for local software developers.
"BPO in the Philippines is definitely not in a recession and is actually growing strong," he said. "In this sector alone, it provides lots of opportunities for developers to offer their services."
Yet Klein noted that aside from BPO, other sectors such as healthcare and energy will continue to open opportunities for software developers.