Startup Secrets: Go to Market Strategies with Michael Skok- Harvard i-lab

Find out why it can be twice as important to get your Go-to-Market right, even if you've engineered a great product. Get to understand the tactical and strategic frameworks needed to enter a market and occupy a dominant position. Learn how to develop your "brand essence" and integrate other key marketing assets so that you can pursue an impactful sales and marketing approach.

2013 CES: Brand Matters Keynote: Marketing in the Cloud (Video)

The Brand Matters keynote brought together executives from the world's top brands to discuss how technology and digital platforms are impacting marketing and brand strategy on a global scale.

About CES

With more than four decades of success, the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) reaches across global markets, connects the industry and enables CE innovations to grow and thrive.

The International CES is owned and produced by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), the preeminent trade association promoting growth in the $195 billion U.S. consumer electronics industry. More than 2,000 companies enjoy the benefits of CEA membership, including legislative advocacy, market research, technical training and education, industry promotion, standards development and the fostering of business and strategic relationships. CEA also owns and produces the International CES – The Global Stage for Innovation. All profits from CES are reinvested into CEA’s industry services.

About CEA

The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) unites 2,000 companies within the consumer technology industry. Members tap into valuable and innovative members-only resources: unparalleled market research, networking opportunities with business advocates and leaders, up-to-date educational programs and technical training, exposure in extensive promotional programs, and representation from the voice of the industry.

What They Don't Teach in Business School about Entrepreneurship

Part of Conference on Entrepreneurship.

Description: A group of entrepreneurs talk about what they learned in the trenches that they never could have learned in a classroom. The panelists will also share the courses that were most helpful to them in their entrepreneurial ventures, the courses that they wished they had taken, and the topics that business schools should be teaching to aspiring entrepreneurs.

About Stanford Graduate School of Business

The Stanford Graduate School of Business' mission is to create ideas that deepen and advance our understanding of management and with those ideas to develop innovative, principled, and insightful leaders who change the world.

Present Philippine Educational Situation: Issues and Challenges

In the Philippines having a good quality education has always been considered as an opportunity to a better quality of life. It’s an equalizing instrument between the rich and the poor. Like any other developing nation-state, the Philippines have various issues and challenges on the existing educational system. Alejo (2006) identified the following as the major current issues facing the educational system:

1)    Lack of physical resources,

2)    Low salaries of teachers,

3)    Lack of competent teachers,

4)    Intensifying dichotomy between private and public schools,

5)    Increasing cost of education, and

6)    Mismatch between training actual job opportunities.

Lack of physical resources. This problem was caused by rapid population increase and the non-improvement of the Philippine economy. This means that school enrollment is constantly increasing every year, while the government spending on education cannot cope-up with said increase. The government spending per capita on education is minimal compared to debt service payments to lending countries and IMF- World Bank.

One of the resulting situation of this problem is the insufficient classroom for increasing supply of students and high ratio of students per teacher. In remote areas, sometimes teachers are holding classes for two different grade level at the same time and in the same room. This is called split teaching. The normal size of this kind of class between 70- 80 students.

  

Low salaries of teachers. On the average, a new teacher receives Php9, 939 a month. Compare this with the entry-level salary of at least P159, 000 in the public schools in California. No wonder, many teachers are continuously tempted to leave the Philippines in search for a greener pasture (Alejo, 2006).

Lack of competent teachers. This is due to the continuing condition of brain drain in the country. Most of highly competent teachers are migrating to the United States and some are even employed as domestic helpers in the Middle East countries. 

Intensifying dichotomy between private and public schools. In the country private schools are perceived to have high quality of instruction and students from public schools are seen as mediocre students. From this perception private schools are somewhat licensed to charge high tuition fees and other fees to maintain their superior school infrastructures.

Increasing cost of education. Primary and secondary education is free as mandated by law. But the increasing cost of education means that a family cannot support the other expenses in sending their children to school. These expenses include school uniform, books, transportation expenses and other related expenses. In a family with four children this would be a large amount of money and this is the regular family size in the country.

Mismatch between training actual job opportunities. This is one problem at the tertiary level and it is also the cause of the existence of a large group of educated unemployed or underemployed.

The Philippine problems on education were the effect of ineffective macro and micro policies of the government inter-playing with other factors in the society. The main reasons for this problems would be that the country is simply not investing enough in the education system, and the education system has been inefficiently managed.

To solve this problem in my point of view, in the macro level, we need to increase the budget expenditure on education. But how? The Philippines can have a moratorium on its foreign debt payment and prioritize the budget on education. 

According to Isagani Cruz, a former Department of Education official, on the micro level, the department is implementing numerous effort to curb the effect of these problems. Such interventions is the introduction of new curriculum, education service contracting, multi-shift classroom policy, library hubs, early childhood education, madrasah education, inclusive education, alternative learning system, school feeding, Every Child a Reader Program (ECARP), competency-based teacher assessment standards, computerization, Schools First, Brigada Eskwela, Sagip Eskwela, Adopt-a-School, Oplan Balik Eskwela, and the Basic Education Sector Reform Agenda (BESRA). A former department secretary commented on an interview that, “if we are to improve Philippine education, we must attract and recruit the best and the brightest among our young citizens to become teachers”, and teachers should also be well compensated to prevent them from migrating to other countries.

References:

Alleba Politics, URL: http://politics.alleba.com/category/education/

Big Brother (Kuya)/Big Sister (Ate) Culture: A Proactive and Responsible Way of Alleviating the Philippine Educational System, URL: http://www.essaycompetition.org/docs/2006/EC06_Alejo.pdf

KAAKBAY CDI, Philippine Public Education – A Situationer by Monday, Jun. 05, 2006 at 6:56 AM, URL: http://qc.indymedia.org/news/2006/06/7391.php

Philippine Daily Inquirer, URL: http://www.inq7.net/brk/2004/jul/05/brkpol_4-1.htm

Cruz, Isagani. URL: http://criticplaywright.blogspot.com/2006/01/creative-solutions-to-philippine.html

Key Issues in Philippine Education, URL: http://www.ph.net/htdocs/education/issue.htm

Submitted by:

Rico BURAGA

Lecture on Japan’s Development Experience

Department of International Development- GSID

Submitted to:

Prof. Yasushi Hirosato

Graduate School of International Development

Nagoya University

INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION OF NURSES IN THE PHILIPPINES

INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION OF NURSES IN THE PHILIPPINES


Globalization is the accelerated interdependence of countries in the world in terms of political, economic, technological and social developments. The rapid flow of capital, technology, and trade has also effects on international migration. Held et al (1999) in their major analysis of globalization observed that ’one form of globalization is more ubiquitous than any other - human migration’. The emergence of economic globalization has seen the development of unprecedented interconnection between immigration on one hand, and increased trade capacity, competitiveness, and employment policy on the other (Keeley, 2002). International migration is becoming a major characteristic of globalization. The traditional concept of nation-state now is becoming blurred. The transnational phenomenon of migration now increasingly affects many individuals, communities, countries and regions all over the world. Migration has both positive and negative social impacts on society of both hosting country and sending country. Global economic reorganization has great effect on developing economies like the Philippines and somewhat contributed to unemployment and employment generation at the same time. In this regard, the paper will focus on the nurse’s migration in the Philippines. The main purpose is to describe the push and pull factors of nurse migration in the country. The paper is primarily based on secondary data and review of literature on Filipino nurse migration past studies. Secondary information was also used to examine the effects of nurse migration in the Philippine health or medical sector. -Rico Buraga, http://rico.emarketingconsult.com

Life Improvement Program (LIP) in the Philippines

A. Life Improvement Program (LIP) in the Philippines

Poverty reduction is one of the main goals of the Philippine government. Majority of the population lives in the rural areas and this population depends on agriculture as the main source of livelihood. In this scenario, Rural Life Improvement (LIP) approach can be an innovative approach to poverty reduction. The notable case of LIP approach in the Philippines is the Training Services Enhancement Project for Rural Life Improvement (TSEP-RLI) in the Province of Bohol. The project was jointly conducted by the Government of the Philippines thru Department of Agriculture (DA) – Agricultural Training Institute (ATI) and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

The target beneficiaries are farmers, fisher folk, women, youth and extension workers. The ATI- DA provides training services to the target beneficiaries as way to improve human resource development. The main components of the project are: improvement rural living condition, environment preservation and livelihood projects. The project utilized the idea of participatory development in order to achieve the goals for the target beneficiaries; local government units and other stakeholders were involved from project planning to implementation. According to Fermentira (2005) the project have positive impacts to the community such as: community mobilization and social participation, greater food sufficiency and stable price, increased income and employment generation, served as a model for other municipalities, and strengthened the partnership between the various stakeholders involved.

B. What are the advantages and disadvantages of Life Improvement Program approach?

1) Advantages

The advantages of the approach are that the target beneficiaries are empowered and their self-reliance is developed. According to experts, projects using participatory approach have higher success compared to top-down approach.

LIP approach is holistic in tackling poverty issues. It concerns income generating activities but also inculcate awareness of environmental protection to the people.

There is also cost-sharing and collaboration among the stakeholders in this way the responsibility and accountability for the success and failure of the project is shared among the stakeholders.

2) Disadvantages

One stumbling block to this approach is how to motivate the different stakeholders to cooperate in the project. For the project to be successful there should be a harmonious mix of government, aid agencies, target beneficiaries and other stakeholders.

The other main disadvantage in my point of view is the sustainability of these projects after the funding agency have concluded the project and it’s time to pull-out from the project area. If the target beneficiaries is not self-motivated enough and the trainings have not been internalize by the people to the point that it is really beneficial to them. Examples are cases of low level of participation by the project beneficiaries like attending meetings just to comply with the attendance and not really deeply involved in the discussion where one’s critical mind is opened-up.

References:

Case study of applied LIP approach/activities in the Philippines: the training services enhancement project for rural life improvement (TSEP-RLI) experience.

URL: http://www.eldis.org/static/DOC20320.htm

FEMENTIRA, Graciana B. Case Study of Applied LIP Approach/Activities in the Philippines The Training Services Enhancement Project for Rural Life Improvement (TSEP-RLI) Experience. Agricultural Training Institute (ATI) -VII - Central Visayas Tagbilaran City, Bohol, Philippines.

URL:http://www.gdnet.org/pdf2/gdn_library/annual_conferences/sixth_annual_conference/fementira_paper.pdf

REYES, Celia M. and Lani E. Valencia. Poverty Reduction Strategy and Poverty Monitoring: Philippine Case Study. URL:http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTPAME/Resources/Country-studies/philippines_povmonitoring_casestudy.pdf