Katipunan Forum
The Industry-Academe Forum on
Linkage, University Technology Transfer and Technology SME Development
Opinion
How Do We Compete ?
by Dennis Posadas
A recent
article in BusinessWeek by Yale Business School professor Jeffrey Garten1
is one of many that talk about the growing movement of manufacturing industries
to China. The “carrot” in this case is obviously the large market, and the
competitive labor rates. While cheap power – through the mammoth Three Gorges
Dam, is several years away, China is pulling out all stops towards attracting
Fortune 500 companies and others to do everything there, specially
manufacturing. Garten even talks about Xiamen making a $10B investment1
to insure that the region remains competitive. How do you compete against
something like that ?
One way is
to establish technology clusters. Ever notice how people talk about discrete
geographical areas like Silicon Valley, Route 128, the UT-Austin area, etc. in
the US ? Ever notice how people talk about Bangalore instead of the entire
India ? Malaysia has its super corridor. Even the Chinese realize the value of
concentrating everything needed for innovation in certain technology parks. But
here in the Philippines, we seem to have
“China is
pulling out all stops towards attracting Fortune 500 companies and others to do
everything there, specially manufacturing. Garten even talks about
Xiamen making a $10B investment1 to insure that the region remains
competitive. How do you compete against something like that ?”
science
and technoparks at every nook and cranny. There is Eastwood, Northgate, RCBC
Plaza, Laguna Technopark, etc. Instead of concentrating our technologists in a certain
area which will allow them to form informal networks, we seem to have insured
that they remain cloistered because of their distance.
One of the
things we really need to do (and this is a hard choice to make), is to
designate only a few high technology geographical areas centered around key
universities and learning centers. The Diliman-Katipunan area is a possible choice
because of its proximity to UP and Ateneo. Perhaps we can setup something like
a “Silicon Alley” where all design houses might agree to relocate. Or an
“Optical Corridor” where companies that cater to optical networking might
choose to relocate close to each other. There is really power in
clustering together in a specific geographical area and numerous
examples around the world will attest to this. We may even choose to combine
resources in terms of laboratories (ex. a national center for optical
excellence, etc.).
In the
middle of this innovation cluster should stand a “Center of Excellence” (CoE)2,
which is basically a world class lab for R&D and training in selected areas
like wireless, optical networking, etc. This lab/training center should have
complete equipment for research, and supported by a world class staff of PhD’s
and MS researchers, many of whom could be “balik scientists” who will be
encouraged to settle here because of the complete infrastructure available in
the innovation cluster. First proposed by venture capitalist Dr. Paco Sandejas,
it was refined further by Dr. Rowena Guevara
________________________________________________________________________
“In the
middle of this innovation cluster should stand an R&D “Center of
Excellence” (CoE), which is basically a world class lab for R&D and
training in selected areas like wireless, optical networking, etc.”
(UP EEE),
Dr. Jay Sabido (ASTI/NCC/DOST), Art Tan and Chicho Mantaring (IMI). Recently,
Katipunan Forum members had a chance to present this to SEIPI’s Ernie Santiago,
and details of the CoE concept are currently being worked out. Taiwan’s Hsinchu
Park helped to propel Taiwan’s economic growth, primarily through the research
output of ITRI, a research institute located inside the park patterned after
Stanford.
The test
of success of this cluster is the formation of world class technology startups,
that will spinoff technologies from the Centers of Excellence. This will
be a challenge because of the preference of Asians for investing in tangible
assets like land instead of intellectual ideas. IP policies will have to be
strictly enforced, and we will have to open up the minds of people like lawyers
and accountants to this type of environment. But things are changing as well.
Having these technology startups, whether they cater to large multinationals or
to the public at large, will attract business because of the proximity of
technologies, products and services that will be available locally.
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1 “When Everything is Made in China”, BusinessWeek, 17
June 2002
2 Center of Excellence (CoE) was first proposed by
Paco Sandejas, PhD to the SEIPI Board of Directors, and is currently being
refined by Art Tan (IMI),
Chicho Mantaring (IMI), Rowena Guevara, PhD (UP EEE), Jay
Sabido IX (DOST/ASTI/NCC).