Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Nokia CEO calls on PGMA, confirms RP tag as Text Capital of the World

No less than the President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Finland-based Nokia Corporation, the world’s largest manufacturer of mobile communications devices, recognized the Philippines’ lofty tag as the "Text Capital of the World" when he called on President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo at the Radisson SAS Plaza Hotel.

Nokia Chairman Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo informed the President of his elation over the company’s successful venture in the country and vowed to give the Philippines a visit by attending a scheduled Information Technology (IT) convention in Cebu City.

While he was happy that the Philippines fully supports Nokia products, he felt concerned that it was also one of the big reasons for the country’s present imbalance of trade with Finland.

Kallasvuo suggested that he will explore the possibility of Finland getting parts manufactured in the Philippines to help correct the trade imbalance.

He then showed the President the fourth generation of phones or 4G devices that Nokia is manufacturing.

Owners of these kind of phones can now watch television programs from their units, according to Kallasvuo.

After watching the morning news on the 4G phone during the demonstration, the President briefed Kallasvuo about the Philippines’ cyber corridor, where the Nokia official expressed interest in.

For the past several years, Nokia has also been working together with the Ayala Foundation, Globe Telecom, Philippine Multimedia System Inc. (PMSI), SEAMO Innotech, and Chikka Asia Inc. for its Bridge it Program.

Locally called Text2teach, the program is designed to reach undeserved youth in their communities through an educational system using digital communications.

Teachers are trained to use this system to create classroom experiences with the help of digital technologies to deliver educational content.

Selected videos are downloaded via satellite to a digital video recorder connected to a television set in the classroom.

A library of over 100 Knowledge Box and 270 locally produced Science, Math and English videos, together with 480 lesson plans to support the video packages, can be accessed by the teacher. (gov.ph)

No comments: