Initial Synthesis of the Online Focus Group Discussions

The online focus group discussion was started to get initial inputs for the summit and to gauge who among the invited stakeholders are willing to participate and contribute to the strategic planning workshop of the 2nd Cebu Information and Communications Technology Summit.

Inputs from live focus group discussions and phoned in feedback was also included in the synthesis because the topics are the same and certain participants have problem getting into the YahooGroups of their interest.

Certain articles or notes chosen or cited by the participants are also included in the synthesis.

Online Focus Group Discussion 1 - First Pillar - Innovation Ecosystem

From the references, notes and discussions about Innovation Ecosystem, the following perceptions, understandings and assertions were discerned from the focus group:

A Geographical Point of Convergence
The innovation ecosystem must be anchored on a specific point of geographical convergence of stakeholders or participants in the ecosystem. This means that there must be a specific area in Cebu that must be developed for this purpose. The direction of real estate development therefore has bearing on the emergence of this geographical point of convergence. We maybe looking the development of large (200+ hectares of land) self-contained communities having malls, commercial centers, banks, leisure areas, planned communities, law enforcement units, government centers, schools with international curriculum, resorts, conventions centers, ICT parks, research facilities, etc.

A Network of Business and Social Interaction
The geographical point of convergence must also be the point where a network of business and social interaction can take place. The location of eating and leisure places must be such that major players in the industry can switch from pure business meetings to more relax social functions without waste of momentum or large blocks of time. This means that travel time between certain sought after ambience must be less than an hour between two points. Certain enterprises or businesses must be able to cater to this need. A regular set of activities or events whether for business or for leisure must be designed to bring the stakeholders in ambience both entertaining and collegial.

Lifestyle Support Systems and Infrastructures
Support systems and infrastructure to support the lifestyle of major players or stakeholders must be developed and maintained. Lifestyle goes beyond good roads, clean water or good supply of energy. The people in this innovation ecosystem must be comfortable, must feel safe, must have choices where they can live or send their kids to school. Innovators need this lifestyle to think, to create, to establish alliances, to deliver the next innovation. We cannot wait for this lifestyle to evolve. We must create them. Build it so they will come.

Educational Institutions with Strong Business and Technology Research
There must be educational institutions or their satellite facilities for business and technology within the self-contained communities. These research programs must be designed to create or to innovate solutions in the form of products or services that solve common human, business and community issues or problems. These institutions should have curricula that must be able to get technology experts to establish a business or a business student to establish a technology enterprise and these enterprises must be able to compete globally. These entrepreneurs must be able to create technology, challenge conventions and "stir" the marketplace.

A Culture for Experimentation and Failure
Entrepreneurs especially startups may fail in their initial attempt in business or launching a product or service. There must be mechanisms to allow these individuals to close shop and start over.

Capital Formation and the Financial Markets
Financials institutions are conservative and may take many more years to be more open to risk. Venture capitalists are good but their focus are on big-ticket investments that practically rule out the entry of small but innovative entrepreneurs. If we cannot encourage big-ticket and conventional sources of finance to take risks we must encourage the growth of non-conventional sources.


Online Focus Group Discussion 2 - Second Pillar - Information Technology Entrepreneurship

From the references, notes and discussions about ITrepreneurship, the following perceptions, understandings and assertions were discerned from the focus group:

Models of Success and Leadership
We must have a way for documenting success stories of entrepreneurs who have competitive successfully in ICT. There are so many ways to do this. We can commission a study and the publication of a book. We can have compilation of business cases or case studies to be use in the local business or technology curricula. Advertising success stories.

Educational Programs for Entrepreneurs
Most of our business and technology programs in the academe are really geared towards creating a mass of employees. Our local paradigm must be the development of the next generation of entrepreneurs. Even if only one percent of each graduating class starts an enterprise every year, the wealth created by that generation will continue to grow in the years to come. Our shift must shift from generation of employees to creation of wealth.

Research for Developing Local IT Enterprises
The aim of research must be to improve the human condition. Our research programs must generate concepts or ideas that solve common human, business and community problems that inhibit wealth or opportunities creation. It must create products and services that business can sell so that it builds an economy.

Business Matching Programs
Although business-matching programs are an integral part of most chamber and trade associations there will always be room for improvements in terms of scale. We may need to consider partnering with global organizations for this purpose.

Offshore Marketing Capability
We have never considered the possibility of combining our resources to come up with a team or an organization that will do marketing for us on a global scale. Partnership with global organizations might just do the trick in this area.

Developing Ancillary Services
Aside from core products, we must be able to develop the capabilities of enterprises who provide ancillary or peripheral support to core products and services. For example, if we have financial institutions planning on selling financial portfolios to enterprises who would like to venture and sell online, we should help these financial institutions develop the capability to provide value-added services in e-commerce through technical support and incentives.

Capital Formation and the Financial Markets
Like always, scalability of operations and starting up an enterprise are still basic challenges that local entrepreneurs have to hurdle. An innovative capital market must be developed and nurtured. One possibility is to enhance the capability of savings and loans cooperatives or lending investor to invest in IT enterprise startups.

Honoring Investors and Contributors to Local Economy
Many companies and mostly global ones are already investing and expanding in Cebu. A program must be instituted probably by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the Department of Tourism (DOT) to honor investors, their representatives and officers in a festive ceremony to give them a very warm experience with Cebuanos.

Business Support Services
Business support services and the availability of more streamlined and shorter processing of business registration, permits and documentation will go along way in growing our base of micro-, small and medium enterprises. Serious efforts have already been done towards this end but more transparency and more technology should be put in place.

There's almost two more weeks to go and we have the summit.

Those who participated in the online focus group discussions will get a PDF version of the synthesis.