4th TIP Student Congress with the Alumni

Hey guys! I'm sorry to disappoint you but I'm not going to publish some codes today. I was invited to be a guest speaker at our institute's student congress with the alumni - for the second time. It was held yesterday, January 23, 2014 in the Technological Institute of the Philippines, QC.

I was with my batch-mate/schoolmate Mark Kevin and Jasmine for the Information Technology student program. It's good to see them, the students, my college and professors!

Here are some of the things I remember telling our students or audience.

Introduction

Good day everyone!

First, I wanna thank all the organizers of this event (OSA, the Alumni Office, etc.) for inviting me here (especially Ms. Isip!) for the second time (I was invited last January 2011) to see and speak to you guys. I hope everyone is having a great day so far.

We were invited here to speak to you about “where are we now?” - since the time we graduated from this institution. In my case, I will talk about the things I experienced after college, not during our college. But if you have some questions during my college life, that's really fine too.

Who am I?

I want to introduce myself. My name is John Michael Vincent D. Dalisay. Such a long name right? My parents make it hard for me to write it during my elementary days.

You can call me “Mike”. I’m 23 years old, from Antipolo City. A graduate of Bachelor of Science in Information Technology batch 2010, April.

Current Position and Company

I’m currently working as a Senior Software Developer for an IT solutions provider here in Quezon City. Our company is called “Eacomm Corporation”. I have been with the company for almost three and a half years now - and I’m glad that everything is still doing great in our company.

Eacomm corporation has be around since 2001. Our company is not that big. But it is stable. We always have cool projects that you can be excited to work on.

Since I joined the company, I personally worked with government agencies (DOLE), educational institutions (UP, Ateneo), and dozens of small and medium scale businesses (Canadian Hospitality Institute, Cafe Sweet, Calleza Grill). Business is good.

Junior Years

During my Junior years in the company, I worked mostly on client (such as the above) and company owned websites - philippinecompanies.com, eforuli.com, eacomm.com. I mostly worked with the back-end stuff such as database and web programming.

I’m not a graphic or web designer. I worked with a graphic designer for every website’s visual design. I was a Junior Software Developer for over two years, from August 2010 up to December 2012.

Promotion and high pay is not in my mind. The pay is just fine for me (it increases every 3 or 6 months anyway, depending on your performance). I know I have lot to learn in my field and being a Junior Software Developer for more than two years seems so fit.

I’m happy acquiring new knowledge, improving my skills in programming and software development and everything in the real-life learning process.

One Step Forward

On December 2012, I signed some new papers. I was promoted as a Software Developer. I’m not a Junior anymore. This was effective January 2013.

It was the year when I almost stopped working with client and company websites (although sometimes they need some support).

2013

Year 2013 was an awesome year for me. Good thing that the 2012 judgement day was cancelled. Just kidding.

It was the year when we signed with a big project - from being an experimental project. Our client is in the sales and marketing industry. He wanted to change the way we think about sales people, making them more technical and cope up with the digital age.

The project is “Software as a Service” or Saas, we are, of course, using the cloud, web and mobile technologies for this project. I can’t tell you more about this project due to some legal issues.

I also worked with Google Singapore. I developed a data collection app to improve Google Maps. The final demo came and a product manager from Google came to the Philippines.

Her name is Ms. Autumn Zhang. She was also a former Software Engineer at Google - worked on Google Maps features like "My Maps".

You can look at her LinkedIn profile.

Below are some pictures taken during our presentation. I was the one in gray shirt, holding the Android device. Ms. Zhang is the one in pink.

Also this year, our company joined an app development contest hosted by DOTC with some sponsors like Smart communications.

Our app is called Trip Barker. Here's a preview of our app, in case you're interested.

We won as the champion. Below are some pictures taken during the event.

The Trip Barker Development Team and EACOMM Management along with DOTC Secretary Joseph Emilio Abaya and other organizers and sponsors of the event.

Me holding our 100K check and trophy.

We were also featured in the news, here are some.

ABC-CBN News: Commuting in Metro Manila? There's an app for that
Inquirer: Tech vs traffic: Winning app offers help to Metro commuters
Manila Standard Today: Trip Barker: Mass Transit Commuting Made Easy
Auto-Industriya: Trip Barker best in Philippine Transit App Challenge
News Bytes: Transport app winner allows commuters to share traffic info
Young Up Starts: [The Philippines] Harnessing Apps To Tackle Traffic
Philippine Government: DOTC concludes successful PHL transit app challenge

We were also nominated to the 2014 Mobile Premier Awards at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain this February 2014.

Another Beautiful Step

Just recently (December 2013), I signed some new papers again. I was promoted to a Senior Developer level effective this January 2014. I’m so happy that something good is happening in my career. I want to be a better leader and software developer.

Future Career Plans

Like what most people say, I want to have my own company, my own business. Maybe after some few more years, I’ll step into this stage of my life. The reality is, I don’t want to be an employee my whole life.

I want to build something awesome, useful to people and make my own money from it. I want to be an entrepreneur. My primary business will be in the IT field and after that, I will venture into food and real estate.

Good Advise

Be humble. If you're humble, you'll be like a sponge, absorbing lessons not only from school but also from life. If you're humble, you can always learn new things and it will make you a better person. You'll be smarter. You'll be happier. If you're humble, you will receive more, and so you can give more - it feels wonderful.

Just do it. Start doing what you have to do. You'll always figure it out. Most of us procrastinate thinking we can't do it. This is also your chance to hone your skills and sharpen you mind for the real life, or in the industry after your college studies.

Good Quotes

Aside from my very inspirational and interesting story, I also want to present some awesome words from some well-known names in the tech industry. You can use it for your career.

"Your work is going to fill a large part of you life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work." ~ Steve Jobs, Apple

"Always deliver more than expected." ~ Larry Page, Google

"When you innovate, you've go to be prepared for everyone telling you you're nuts." ~ Larry Ellison, Oracle

"What really motivates people at Facebook is building stuff they're proud of." ~ Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook

"Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose." ~ Bill Gates, Microsoft

"A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn reputation by trying to do hard things well." ~ Jeff Bezos, Amazon

Industry Testimonials

End.

Below is the power-point version of my presentation.

Alright, that was my short talk! I didn't have enough time to tell them something more since it's already 6:15 PM and 6:00 PM was the dismissal. I saw in their eyes that they want more, but the time is up.

Funny moments include their interest in my love life. My power-point presentation was web based, sometimes, the internet connection is really slow so we wait for some slides to load. While loading, they wanted me to say something about my love life. I was just smiling at them and saying something else. Haha! I said we were there to encourage and tell them about the IT industry.

It feels so good knowing that you have a positive impact to the lives of others. Those students, I know they listened carefully. The asked questions. I feel their interest. They are amazed. It feels like I'm giving them something to look forward too and so they will keep on moving forward!

After the talk, I was assisted by a student officer to the dining room and have a dinner with our professors, student officers, and colleagues. The food was good.

Here are some more pictures from the event.

Student officer Jason and Jasmine.