Thursday, May 28, 2009 [ sunstar.com.ph ]
By Bong D. Fabe
THE Growth with Equity in Mindanao (GEM) program led Wednesday the launching of a business-process outsourcing (BPO) facility in the campus of the Marawi State University-Iligan Institute of Technology (MSU-IIT) in Iligan City.
Nikki Meru, GEM media liaison, said the 24-hour BPO facility is owned by HP Outsourcing Philippines, Inc., a subsidiary of the Hubport Group.
The facility will serve as a remote (or virtual) office for Hubport’s commercial operations, as well as a virtual computer laboratory for the on-the-job training of IIT students on Web design, animation, transcription services and other skills, with the expectation that selected students will eventually be hired by Hubport.
Hubport will also help selected students hone their English skills through GEM’s Job Enabling English Proficiency project, which is in place at MSU-IIT, Meru said.
Hubport will also share best practices in BPO operations with MSU-IIT. It will also assist the university’s faculty in tailoring the institute’s information and communications technology (ICT) curriculum to the BPO sector’s needs to ensure that the skills of the local labor pool match industry requirements.
Friday’s launching is the fruit of the business partnership between MSU-IIT, a state-run university located 88 kilometers from this capital city of Northern Mindanao (Region 10) and known for its information technology (IT) and engineering programs, and HP Outsourcing Philippines, Inc., a major business-process outsourcing (BPO) company.
The GEM program, funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) had helped facilitate the partnership between Hubport and MSU-IIT.
Hubport, which has offices and partners in the US, Canada, the UK, Saudi Arabia and Japan, provides Web-based services from web-site design, development, hosting and search-engine optimization, to Internet consultancy, e-commerce, multimedia design and BPO.
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