DAVAO CITY—The Philippines need more highly trained human resources pursuing graduate studies in the fields of research and development particularly engineering and technology.
Dr. Roel Ocampo, Associate Dean for Research, College of Engineering University of the Philippines-Diliman and the current project leader of ERDT (Engineering Research Development for Technology) says that the Philippines lags behind its Southeast Asian neighbors in terms of research and development.
“Andoon tayo sa ilalim (We are at the bottom) If you look at the two indicators defined by UN (United Nations); research intensity this has to do with investment in R&D (research and development) and the other one is researcher density which numerically is pegged at the number of full-time researchers per million population,” Ocampo said.
The Philippines has only 106 researchers per million people while Singapore is tops among ASEAN countries with 6308 researchers per million people, followed by Malaysia with 2397. Thailand has 1360.
“Indonesia (216) has twice ours in density, Vietnam (708 researchers) seven times no wonder pagdating sa research side AI pagdating sa decision ng NVIDIA kung saan sila lulugar doon sila sa Vietnam and Vietnam isn’t even happy tingin nila kulang pa,” Ocampo said during his talk at the Philippine Sky Artificial Intelligence (SkAI-PINAS) 3rd Program-Wide Congress held in Davao City.
(…No wonder in terms of research side in AI, in terms when NVIDIA was deciding where to locate, they chose Vietnam and Vietnam is not even happy they think it is lacking)
Ocampo said the ability to generate researchers depends upon the state of the country’s higher education.
In the Philippines there are 673 higher education institutions (HEI) offering engineering programs with 12,258 faculty members with PhDs (all fields) in these 673 HEIs. This translates to 18.21 PhDs per HEI on average.
And 50.28 percent of these PhD holders are concentrated in only 62 of the 673 HEIs.
“More than half of all PhD holders concentrated in less than 10% of all HEIs offering engineering programs,” Ocampo said.
“It is bad for the country that most of these PhDs are in these few institutions,” he added.
He said in training researchers there must be faculty who are thoroughly and intensively trained in R&D.
“Systematic and intensive training really happens on the PhD level,” Ocampo said.
He urged Filipinos to pursue post-graduate studies, particularly doctorates (PhD) in engineering. Ocampo said there are many opportunities for Filipinos taking up technology as post graduate studies.
He says many will be discouraged that their academic papers they had worked on in Graduate School will amount to nothing. But Ocampo says the graduate school provides them much-needed training they can apply in their industry
“For most of us, going through grad school baka wala. pero practice lang yan. Just like when you write a term paper in the subject English 10 di naman in-expect na Pulitzer Prize winning yang term paper mo. Practice yan. The career starts out there with your graduate degree.
He said the goal is not to get a PhD, it is not just going to the academy but to be absorbed by the industry.
“In North America PhDs in AI (Artificial Intelligence) are going to industry. This also tells us something that fuels industrial growth, especially AI. It is not just the academy,” Ocampo said.
He said that the growth of Silicon Valley in the industries of electronics and IT was fueled by the flow of people.
“It is not technology transfer but people transfer,” Ocampo cites the growth of Silicon Valley’s tech industries.
He said that top tech companies in the world such as Google, Intel, Apple, Microsoft, and Meta have a large number of employees with graduate degree holders. Google for one, had 44 percent of the employees are graduate degree holders of which 28.3 percent are master’s degree holders and 16 percent have PhDs.
Ocampo cited a local success story which involves the University of the Philippines EEEI (Electrical and Electronics Engineering Institute) Microlab and tech firm Analog Devices Incorporated Philippines.
Around 100 plus engineers in ADI Philippines are graduates of UP EEEI.
Out of the 200 released products, 80 of these were co-developed by ADI Philippines engineers who came from UP. 11 out of 28 US-issued patents have co-inventors from UP, two out of seven top secret awards have UP co-inventors.
The partnership between UP EEEI and ADI translated to a total cumulative revenue of more than $1-billion.
“That is one billion dollars, not pesos. And this tells us that if we produce people, and these people also go to industry, if we can take care of higher education then these would produce value as well, perhaps contributing to scalable and sustainable industrialization in the country,” Ocampo said. (PIA/RGA)
