According to Boni Belen, the Silicon Valley model seem to have four (4) significant components to work he refers to as "pillars" of the model. To get the exact perspective of Boni I'm going to quote his concept paper here:
(Start of quote)
Pillar 1 - The creation of an Innovation Ecosystem
Innovation is a major driving force behind economic success. Innovation happens within an "ecosystem" that promotes and enables R&D to find its way to the marketplace.For Cebu to aim at long-term sustainability in ICT, innovation has to be at the heart of the endeavor with our IT Parks (Asia Town, for example) taking center stage in such undertaking.
Pillar 2 - The promotion of a Culture for Technology Entrepreneurship
Technologists need much encouragement to make the decision to enter into business. Beyond this step, moreover, the "incubation" of their ideas, mentorship from business experts, and partnership form venture capitalists, has to be within "real" reach. Cebu has the potential of reaping an abundance of technology entrepreneurs within the next
decade, but only if we succeed (through CebuSoft, for instance) in "incubating" these people and start-up companies.
Pillar 3 -The provision of a Critical Mass of Quality Professionals and Practitioners
Aspiring to develop technology start-ups necessarily requires that there be a critical mass of competent ICT professionals and practitioners - from engineers, to teachers with postgraduate degrees, to scientists, highly skilled technicians, etc., sustaining the needs of these technology business. The quantity and quality of such professionals and practitioners currently available, as well as the stream of graduates from Cebu's educational institutions, have to be increased; by sustaining, and making more effective and wider in scope, the interventions already put in motion by CEDF-IT (and the Cebu Computer Society) in the last four years.
Pillar 4 - The availability of Legal and Financial Framework (with the Provincial IT Council)
Technology venture formation calls for unambiguous Intellectual Property Laws, availability of IP lawyers, accountants and assessors for fair financial valuation, and adequate legal framework for venture capital. For Cebu to give birth, or lend support, to existing innovation-based companies that have no collateral except for their ideas and intellectual property, it is essential that the legal and financial framework be made definite and available (through the leadership of the Provincial IT Council perhaps).
(End of Quote)
Caesar Atienza, Consultant to the Office of the Provincial Governor, had an interesting question then: "Is Silicon Valley the only model?"
In the last several months doing research on each of the 4 pillars of the Silicon Valley Model, I found out that there is much information in different forms and model adapted by countries like Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, People's Republic of China via Hong Kong and of course India. And in my own perspective Singapore seems to come close to us in terms of business model and geographical affinity. A lot of the materials for the coming summit are in fact coming from the Singapore experience not because I have bias for Singapore but because many studies and materials available over the web provides more meaningful information about Singapore than any country.
Even those studies conducted in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Australia and The Netherlands by both government and academe use Singapore as a case study. Don't be surprise if much of the URL I will be providing in the Online Focus Group Discussions will lead you to a Singapore website or a case study about Singapore.
Back to the question: "Is the Silicon Valley Model the only model we can work on?"
From what I have discerned in the materials at hand and available on the web, there is actually another model for development: The High Technology Urban Centers of Europe. The only thing different in Europe is that most high technology urban centers evolved because of the success stories of the pharmaceutical industry and the growth of medical and bio-technology research.
Europe will continue to lead in this area in the coming years and after starting off with the Silicon Valley Model, Singapore is starting to look at this model for their future and so does India. India in fact hosted a conference specifically tackling the issues on the growth of high technology urban centers. India is trying to get their finger on what will be the best model from the many presentations that will be made in this conference for their own development.
For Cebu Island, it cannot look at the European model for two obvious reasons: First, Cebu is going for ICT as a strategy for its development together with Tourism; and, second, Cebu or the Philippines for that matter is a long way off to be in the map of locations for medical and pharmaceutical research. Medical and pharmaceutical research has not faired well in the financial markets because of its low success or breakthroughs. The US has not been doing well in this area because many of the companies into production and research in this field do not have good business fundamentals to show for almost a decade now.
I rather not go into a drawn out discussions about the second reason because it is frutstrating and does not add to knew knowledge for all of us ICT stakeholders who are digging in and looking for solutions. Now my perpsective on the 4 pillars of the Silicon Valley model. I will be discussing each of the pillars in my next blogs.
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