First CICT chair, 2011 newsmakers feted in Cyberpress Awards

In a year that saw the abolition of the Commission of Information and Communications Technology (CICT), a national organization of technology journalists chose to honor the first chief of the defunct agency as a tribute to his contributions to the local ICT industry.

Pena

Virgilio “Ver” Pena, who served as CICT chief from 2004 to 2006, was recognized Friday night at the Cyberpress Awards along with other newsmakers who made their mark in the year that is about to end.

Pena, also a former country general manager of IBM Philippines, is the third person to receive the recognition, after fellow IT stalwarts Dr. William “Bill” Torres, the “Father of Philippine Internet”, and STI co-founder Augusto “Gus” Lagman.

Cyberpress, which is also known by its official name Information Technology Journalists Association of the Philippines (ITJAP), is the country’s premiere organization of print, broadcast, and online journalists covering the country’s ICT beat.

House ICT committee chair Sigfrido Tinga inducted the incoming set of officers of the Cyberpress and also helped in handing out the awards to the winners.

Named “IT Product of the Year” was the Metro Manila Traffic Navigator (TNAV), developed and operated jointly by the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) and InterAksyon.com, the online news arm of network TV5.

The TNAV, which users can access through various online channels, bested other nominees such as the Apple iPad 2, the new generation of Epson Ink Tank printers, the Smart Net Phone and Ultrabooks powered by Intel processors.

IT industry veteran Judith Duavit-Vasquez was also named “IT Executive of the Year.”

The outspoken IT executive is the first Filipino to be appointed as board director of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the highest governing body for Internet matters.

Meanwhile, the distinction of “IT Company of the Year” for 2011 was handed to PLDT, the country’s largest telecom firm.

PLDT, led by Manuel V. Pangilinan, carried out a number of big initiatives this year, which included gobbling up Digitel, putting out a company-branded smartphone, and launching a new corporate logo. The local firm bested multinationals like IBM, Lenovo, Google and Netsuite.

The impact of 2011 for PLDT also proved to be just as significant to the whole IT industry. PLDT’s acquisition of Digitel, which restored the industry duopoly, was named “IT Story of the Year.”

The “IT Story of the Year” award is Cyberpress’s way of recognizing the most significant implications on IT industry stakeholders.

Tech giant Intel also collaborated this year with the Cyberpress to stage the inaugural edition of the “Intel Tech Educator of the Year Award” which was given out during the same event.

The first recipient of the award was Paolo Montecillo, also the incoming president of Cyberpress, for his incisive stories that appeared in the Philippine Daily Inquirer. He also received an Ultrabook computer as prize. — Newsbytes.ph