Davao CyberExpo now on its sixth year

The Davao Cyber Expo (DCE), Davao City’s biggest tech culture event celebrated its sixth year with their biggest expo yet at the SM City Davao CyberZone. The expo opened on Friday, July 27, and was attended by a wide variety of participants, from gamers to cosplayers, tech consumers to modders, students and onlookers curious about the latest gaming technology to serious competitive gamers eager to win the title and the cash prize. Even the local city government was there, represented by Davao City CouncilorPilar Braga in behalf of Mayor Inday Sarah Duterte.

 

The Davao Cyber Expo was borne out of the idea of bringing different tech cultures together under one roof in order to share similar ideals and simply enjoy each other’s company. Since its inception in 2006, the expo has grown to massive proportions. It’s now a heavily anticipated event for the Davao IT and gamer community with thousands of participants not just from Davao City but from all over the Philippines.

 

The Expo has four (4) main events: the Davao Cyber Games, the Davao Cosplay Championships, the LAN PARTY Extreme, and the TechExtreme Exhibits. 

 

The most anticipated event is the Davao Cyber Games where DOTA (Defense of the Ancients) and HoN (Heroes of Newerth) players and teams compete against one another for the grand prize of P25,000 and products from sponsors. 

 

Another event that regularly brings in the crowd for the Expo is the Davao Cosplay Championships. Cosplayers from Davao City and nearby provinces show up at the Davao Cyber Expo every year to show off, connect and compete for prizes. Visitors have come to anticipate the Cosplay parade and championships where they come to see the ingenuity, creativity, and talent of this small yet growing community.

 

The LAN PARTY Extreme is not your ordinary LAN party. The Davao modders were out in full force to show the community just what you can do to your desktop with a little imagination, a little know how, and a lot of hard work. There were towers encased in glass, CPUs that looked like vintage record players, a computer that looked like it was made of wood, there was even one that looked like Tony Stark’s Iron Man briefcase. These machines don’t just look interesting; these are powerful gaming consoles with the best hardware money can buy to run the most demanding games and applications.

 

The TechExtreme Exhibit is where serious gamers and consumers get a first glimpse of the latest and the best gaming hardware from the biggest brands in the industry like MSI, ASUS, Razer, Western Digital, Kingston, Noctua, and Thermaltake. This is the one time every year that these brands can show off their products first hand to consumers before they distribute it to their dealers and be available for sale.

 

The Expo also features minor events for other members of the Davao cyber community to enjoy. There’s a blogging competition where bloggers who write about the event and its sponsors can win P3,000 or original RiR Tactical All Weather Pens. Online gamers can participate in the StreetFighter 4 and NBA 2K12 mini tournaments sponsored by ASUS. The award-winning, free to play, MMO game War of Tanks was featured and can be played for free for those who register.On Saturday, ASUS will be holding a small forum to teach gamers and consumers on the basics of overclocking, the process of making a computer run faster than what was specified by the manufacturers.

 

Lester Avila, part of E-squared Events and organizer for the event, was extremely happy with the huge turnout at the opening ceremony. “The increasing number of participants and the anticipation that people have for this event every year is proof that Mindanao and Davao City in particular, has a strong and very supportivecyber community. We look forward to making Davao Cyber Expo bigger in the years to come and eventually turning it into a nationwide event.” — TJD, GMA News