Posted by Unknown

July 4 meeting

July 4 meeting, we scheduled to meet at 8 am. I was excited, it was already my second time taking up the class as I failed the first one. I was excited because I already had an idea what was going to happen. I woke up early, because I knew already, being late is a sin. I got to the school 10 minutes early. My classmates were nervous they have been told that they will be doing the elevator pitch after the lecture. As usual, our facilitator Randy S. Gamboa arrived very early. But before we had our class discussion and lecture our facilitator had some exciting activities for us. This activity is aimed to let us follow simple instructions. Our facilitator told us to prepare a one whole sheet of yellow paper and a black ball-point pen, luckily, I always brought a bond of yellow paper and a ball-point pen that whenever I have his class. This is where the fun start now, our facilitator then says that those unlucky students who do not have a whole sheet of yellow paper should stand up. I had noticed that some of
the students stand up- which means that they did not brought a one whole sheet of yellow paper and because of that situation I then they were asked to buy from those students that has extra paper, but on a highly different prices, really very high price. Unreasonable prices. It was fun, most of my classmates are first timers to our facilitator. Our professor then said the consequences for my classmates who did not brought yellow papers: that if you are going to sell a product you need to add some reasonable value from its original price for you to have an income. I had thought that the price will only rise a little bit but I am wrong. From the amount of around twenty pesos you can already buy one whole sheet of yellow paper and about ten pesos for a black ball-point pen. Surprisingly, the prices reached fifty pesos and a hundred pesos, respectively. I do not know about business things but wait, does business really runs like this? Well, guess that they do not have a choice to argue so, they grab their pouches and wallets and that is where the persuading thing to buy a product began. Then after that, we started our first and last quiz according to our facilitator. There were two activities that followed during the previous meeting. The first was a quiz type. We were given a few instructions to be followed. The first instruction goes like “Write your name on the bottom left of the paper then place a comma on the center, top most justified, then the last instruction was to right the name on the bottom right, justified”. This quiz activity is a simple quiz yet tricky and critical. It is simple in a sense that there was basically a simple task, to right your last name before you first name separated by a comma, yet, tricky because when you might begin in writing your first name first before your surname you might charge not following instruction. And critical because in addressing the quiz a student has to encounter a crossroad. He/ she needs to choose to either listen first before writing down but has the risk of forgetting a line from the list of instructions or play it safe by doing all that has been instructed after every line to avoid missed items.  This kind of test is conducted to either test the character or the ability of an individual to follow strict instructions.

The activity was to follow his instructions. Most of the students started writing right away. It was really fun. It made me laugh. They have already began writing just by listening only partial instructions, and it made them errors, so they bought another paper. It is not my first time having a subject under sir so I know exactly what to do. But I am not the only second timer on the class there are also some who never wrote anything yet and waited for the next instruction to avoid committing mistakes as they really know what to do. He then instructed us to write our name, paused for a long time, and I noticed that the virgins did write their names immediately, but us? We just waited for sir to finish his instruction since we knew that there is always something in the end. He then continued the instruction to write our name at the bottom-right of our paper and as we are writing he began to check if someone did it wrong, Some of the students did it wrong, mostly those who are still knew to sir Gamboa and those who really didn’t thought quiet enough. Fortunately I got it right, of course it was already my second time. I really liked it. It was so easy for me. I knew exactly what to do the whole time.

Then we proceed to our activity, he presents this puzzle called “the 9 dots” the rule of this puzzle is so simple but when we start to find its solution that is when its simplicity makes it complex. He then asks us “what is a line?” Hmm. What is a line? Well, I have read this explanation that a line is a dot that went for a walk but does it makes sense? So, instead of thinking what a line is, I just focus on how to solve the presented puzzle by connecting the dots in just a 4-stroke connected line and of course, since it is my retake on this subject I originally knew what to do with the nine dots. I like it most because I already know how to do it because it was my second time to encounter the problem. Aside from that reason I like the activity because it sends a message that we should always think outside the box. Not all answers are always presented in your very eyes. The instructions were to write 9 dots on 3 by 3 matrixes in the center of our paper. Then we needed to connect the dots in four strokes in without breaking the line and lifting the pen. At my first encounter on this problem it was mind-blogging because it was hard to connect the dots without lifting the pen, in order to do it you need to literally bring the line outside the margins of the last dot on the upper left until you will be able to hit all the dots.  In technopreneurship it is essential to possess these three characteristics to generate fresh and unique ideas. First you need to learn how to find an opportunity, second learn to follow instructions and third always think outside the box. It is like his ritual in starting the discussion, it is like he wants to imprint on everyone’s mind the idea or the main concept of not thinking only inside the box. He then explains that we should think more beyond the things we have- “we should think outside the box” thus, it means that we should think creatively on things we encounter. There have been a lot of things that were discussed during our previous meeting on Information Technology Elective course 1 (Technopreneurship), there were some interesting points that had caught my attention and there were some that does not seem too appealing for me. Our facilitator shared some stories to us. He told everybody about the academe, PSITE and all about Technopreneurship. Also it was pointed out that there was a very thin line between being a technopreneur and being an entrepreneur. One of the good points that were discussed was the inclusion of the Technopreneurship by the Commission of Higher Education (CHED) in university courses. According to a write-up published online by philstar.com last February 27, 2015, CHED encourages institutions to include technopreneurship courses such as on engineering programs. It has been quoted that they wanted engineering students to learn how to create and venture on discovering products that will not only help elevate Filipinos ways of living but also help the growth of the Philippine economy. It has been said that this program should start by training some faculty members of Universities and state colleges that in the future would also become the professors of the said the subject. This initiative is empowered by the memorandum signed by CHED in cooperation with Philippine Science and Technology Development Foundation-Manila, Inc. (PhilDev) and CHED promised that even the project would end by 2016 the office is willing to continue this endeavor.

Unlike any other field on the academe the field of Information and Communications Technology were introduced earlier on this subject. Sir Randy Gamboa was one of the early advocates of the course throughout Davao Region. During the class he has shared some of his past experiences on technopreneurship seminars and competitions locally and abroad. He shared how technopreneurship has opened opportunity not only for teachers but also for students explore their abilities and capacity in generating novel ideas. For the previous years the University of Southeastern Philippines-Institute of Computing has joined various local and national technopreneurship competitions and has been constantly winning. Technopreneurship offers a lot both for the academe and industry as well.

This is really great news especially to those average students who may not have excelled on the technical stuff but are enthusiast of the field. This population of students who have not achieved outstanding marks on the academe may have a hard time pursuing a career in line to their field and technopreneurship is a good alternative for their field-related career path. Simply because technopreneurship is the combination of technology and entrepreneurship which means business through technology or by making a technology to become a business that will probably give you money. It deals with innovating technologies so that it can be useful to people and as well as to be a good thing in business, technopreneurs thinks technology as a different way to help the economy grow. Technopreneurs are always willing to take the challenges that will come, face it when it comes to their way along the road to success. They are not afraid of facing failures that will pull them down from reaching their goal to success; instead they will only think that failure as a stepping stone to achieve greater success.

Our country is one of the fastest growing economy in ASIA, still there are plenty of people who live in poverty who are still struggling and struggling from the roots of poverty. But with the emergence of innovation laboratories and innovation competitions both here and abroad, discovering young Steve Jobs and Bill Gates is finally possible. Financiers are willing to spend right amount of money for potential business to survive on the competition. They finance for offices, facilities and materials for the development of the product. They also provide mentoring when it comes to the entrepreneurial side of the business. This makes it easier for young entrepreneurs to finally enter the market. 

Another good thing that was presented on the class was activities that actually stimulate the business minds of us students. It was fun when we were asked to grab some yellow paper for a quiz. For those who already know the rules of the game such as me it was funny to see students making fuzz on asking on extra paper from their seatmates. But the fun never stops there, there is a rule that when someone asks for a paper they should pay for it. There has been an opportunity for business there, because the students really needed the paper they are willing to spend 10 times more than the original prize of the paper because they badly want to take the exam. There is no other option. In there we learned that in business sometimes all you need is to find the right opportunity to grab to find success.