SAN FERNANDO CITY, La Union (PIA) -- This city awarded the 1st Startup and 5th e-Governance competition winners in the recently concluded 5th Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Summit held at the J&V Hotel and Resort on March 12.
Lorma Colleges bagged the championship with their "LIGTAS" app on the first-ever Startup Challenge of the city, created by Kathryn Deille Abasolo, Risha May Balanon, and Den Mark Sarmiento, with Kholin Fukuda as the team coach.
According to the school's College of Computer Studies and Engineering Acting Dean Dr. Ardee Joy Ocampo, the ‘LIGTAS’ app is specifically designed for women’s safety.
“The project was designed for women, for safety of women as we are vulnerable. For these days, women empowerment and women protection is very important. So, we created this to make every woman ‘ligtas’,” said Ocampo.
Awardees for the Startup Challenge also include the Project HYDRA (Hydrophonic Devices for Reliable Automation) by Lorma Colleges which won second place, and TRAVEL BUDDY by Don Mariano Marcos Memorial State University-Mid La Union Campus (DMMMSU-MLUC) for third place.
The winners for the start-up competition, Lorma Colleges poses along with (right) DICT USec. Jocelle Batapa-Sigue, Division Chief of ICT Ecosystem Frances Loraine Valdez, Councilor Kyle Nisce, (left) PLDT Rep Vincent Rodriguez, Vice-Chairman for Private Sector, Michael Catan and City ICT Officer Germie Deang.
Meanwhile, DMMMSU-MLUC won top spot on the 5th e-Gov competition with their AGSIRBI-E: A Barangay Services Management System, an application that caters the management of barangay transactions with appointment feature using QR-code.
The app was created by Joseph Abubo, John Lester Mendoza, Jessa Del Santos, with Marylen Rodriguez as their coach.
Del Santos mentioned that she personally experienced the struggle of getting barangay records and that motivates her to come up with this idea.
“As a resident po na naranasan yung hassle ng pagkuha ng documents sa barangay in manual way, we created this system para po mas mapadali ang trabaho ng mga nasa barangay at para po mas maging convenient din sa atin na mga clients,” said Del Santos.
DMMMSU-MLUC also secured second spot with their ACE (Approach in Case of Emergency) app, while Saint Louis College won third place for their Incidents Responders Application (IRA) in the e-Gov competition.
The e-government competition winners, DMMMSU-MLUC with (right) DICT USec Jocelle Batapa-Sigue, ICT Ecosystem Division Chief Frances Loraine Valdez, City councilor Kyle Nisce, (left) Vice-chairman for Private Sector, Michael Catan and City ICT officer Germie Deang.
Further, the champion on both categories received P15,000 prize, trophy, medals, certificates, gift kits and smart TV; second place winner received P10,000 prize, gift kits, medals and certificates; and the third placer received P5,000 cash, gift kits, medals and, certificates.
The Startup and e-Gov challenge aim to encourage and inspire the city’s young talents to create innovative ICT products and services that they later adopt on the local government units and government agencies.
The ICT Summit is one of the highlights of the 25th founding anniversary of the city which projects inclusivity, partnership, and collaborations of various sectors, ICT players, and stakeholders that embody the vision of the city to make San Fernando a People’s City. (JCR/MJTAB/KDM/Region 1)
