Academe-Industry collaborations was the core of the discussions among students, faculty, and experts from different fields of work during the Synergy Forum last February 1, 2018 at the Senior High School Library.
Engr. Segismundo Exultacion Jr., the President of Tsuneishi Technical Services, highlighted the importance of OJT programs with tie-up schools like USJ-R to fast-track the employment process.
His company has set up learning sessions for the university, wherein the engineers from Tsuneishi introduce the application of Engineering in Ship Design and Ship Building.
“We could fast track employment, so we don’t have to train them anymore. The training duration would be shorter.” Engr. Exultacion says about Tsuneishi’s OJT program.
The Tsuneishi Technical Services – Philippines is a ship-design company, which aims to be the globally preferred technical service provider of detail and production design. Tsuneishi is focuses on the Functional or Midstream and Detail and Production or Downstream Design of the Ship – Design Process.
Two talks were centered on the activities and projects have been formulated by external partners together with the academe.
Human Resource Manager for Organization Development and Employee Relations from Knowles, Gladys Santos, expressed gratitude in behalf of their company to the University of San Jose – Recoletos (USJ-R) for integrating the Electroacoustic Engineering Elective in the curriculum.
“USJ-R was the only university who responded to our request (to integrate electroacoustic)” she said.
Santos added that the elective is special because of the absence of Electroacoustic Engineering courses in the Philippines. Aside from it, Knowles has implemented several projects with the USJ-R like an OJT Program with the Industrial Engineering students and an in-house Masters in Business Management program.
Knowles manufactures receivers which are used in several gadgets such as mobile phones, laptops, and hearing aids.
On a separate matter, opportunities for faculty members was also shared by Dr. Richard Abendan from the Research and Industry Partnerships Manager of the Science, Technology, Research and Innovation for Development (STRIDE) program of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
According to Dr. Abendan, the STRIDE’s Faculty Externship Program is like an On the Job Training (OJT) program for a faculty member of a university. In this program, professors are sent to a specific industry and work for them.
STRIDE’s mission is strengthening linkages between industry and academe, because of the lack of trust between the two groups. Dr. Abendan included in his discussion that there is a belief that the academe might steal secrets of the industry, while the industry might steal faculty from the university.
“STRIDE had to play matchmaker,” Dr. Abendan remarked.
He also mentioned that innovation is not only science in terms of technological advancements but also in other fields as well such as education, medicine and research.
Dr. Mary Gretchen Chaves of the University of the Philippines – Cebu’s School of Management shared her research paper which focused on mainstreaming “Management of Innovation” in the curriculum.
To assess the Philippines’ extent of Innovation, she utilized different sources of information which include the World Economic Fund (WEF) Global Competitiveness Report of 2016 wherein the Philippines ranked 57th out of 138 countries and the Global Innovation Index where the Philippines finished 73rd out of 128 countries.
“Clearly we all know there is room for us to improve.” she commented on the Philippines ranking.
Dr. Chaves recommended to create a degree program for Management of Innovation or at least integrate the subject matter into the university’s existing courses.
The Dean of the College of Commerce, Dr. Edgar Detoya, explained that the college cannot input the course into the curriculum just yet because of the lack of teachers who could teach the subject.
To cap the forum, the participating students threw queries at the speakers and had a workshop to evaluate where they can apply their learnings after the event.
Written by Gerard Vincent P. Francisco (The Purveyor Publications)
