The Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) will soon launch a new type of ecozone concept envisioned as mini Silicon Valleys to be hosted by state universities and colleges.
To be called Knowledge, Innovation, Science & Technology (KIST) parks, these ecozones will become future sites of knowledge-based industries such as information technology and business processing.
Charito Plaza, PEZA director-general, said KIST will transform existing campus IT parks into KIST parks to create more value adding for the country’s higher education institutions.
The concept is one of the new types of ecozones that PEZA will be launching soon .
This initiative is in partnership with the Department of Science and Technology and the academe.
PEZA has initially tapped the Philippine Association of State Universities and Colleges (PASUC) and the University of the Philippines (UP) to provide pilot areas mostly idle lands within their campuses that can be developed as model KIST parks.
Recognizing the success of the Ayala Technohub in UP Diliman as a premier IT park under PEZA, Plaza is gearing up to build on this public-private partnership by creating more IT parks in the universities and colleges all over the country to serve as viable locations for leading IT-BPO companies.
Given the schools’ steady supply of talents, quality of educational infrastructure and strong scientific-technological culture, PEZA hopes to transform these campus IT parks ultimately into KIST parks.
In a recent consultation meeting with PASUC and UP, Plaza has challenged the schools’ top executives to venture into ecozone development to be able to attract scientists and venture capitalists into innovation and technology as well as to promote the establishment of more knowledge process outsourcing hubs and research and development centers through the KIST parks.
PEZA sees this strategy as feasible taking into account the country’s highly educated and English-speaking workforce and the large pool of competent college/university professors and students that can provide intellectual capital to locator industries in KIST parks.
PEZA sees the same vibrant academe-industry collaboration in the Biopolis of Singapore, Science & Technology parks of Korea and Education City of Qatar—as among the international models of S&T parks that PEZA has studied to complement DOST’s KIST framework.
Akin to an S&T park, PEZA version of a KIST park pertains to a “center of excellence or a kind of space where productive activity is done by collaborating government, academics, community and business”. (ScienceDirect).
PEZA is thus expanding the eligible activities or projects that may be hosted by KIST park developers.
Apart from the conventional IT-enabled activities, companies into technology, innovation and R&D may register with PEZA as locators in the KIST parks and where their pioneering products/services and innovative solutions may cater to both export and domestic markets.
The academe may also partner with the industry particularly in putting up a research institute and incubation facility where its scientific studies or technology patent can be offered to venture capitalists for commercial development and production. The KIST parks may be immediately rolled out in public and private institutions with high academic standards and strong research facilities in the fields of biotech, food and nutrition, agro-engineering, electronics, robotics, renewable energy, transport solutions, data analytics, etc.
