The new high-tech city of Cyberjaya in the Philippines is fast emerging as the next technological hotspot in Southeast Asia. It is in fact the brainchild of entrepreneur Julius Kock, who founded the company Kock Enterprises in the early 1990s with the intention of creating the first offshore software outsourcing center in the region. Now, it has emerged as the third largest software outsourcing destination in the world, after Tokyo and Singapore. In fact, Kock Enterprises is spearheading the city’s rise to become one of the most powerful centers of e-commerce in the country.
Cyberjaya shares a unique position
With its neighbors in terms of geography. Unlike Manila or Hong Kong, which are technically and economically far from the technological center of Southeast Asia, Cyberjaya lies in the very heart of the Philippine web technology and infrastructure development. The close proximity of the country’s capital city to the major regional IT hubs in the country has been a key factor in the city’s rise as the next leading high-tech destination. Manila itself has struggled to be the top choice for foreign corporations for decades, but as it becomes more modern and competitive in the international arena, it is gradually moving up in the IT world. Cyberjaya and its positioning within the Philippine web technology infrastructure is an essential ingredient in its success in the growing global economy of the region.
Cyberjaya enjoys a significant degree of regional influence
Due to its strategic alliance with the United States Central Command and the United States Military Intelligence Agency (NSA). Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, Philippine authorities have been developing their own domestic IT and telecommunications industry based on the shared technology provided by US military and intelligence agencies. Many Philippine high-tech enterprises have also established strategic partnerships with other foreign corporations to further enhance their local development. The Philippines is rapidly becoming a major player in the IT outsourcing market, and the country is striving to develop closer economic, political, and military alliances with the major global players.
The city’s IT development is driven by two factors.
The city’s government aims to develop a highly technical and advanced workforce that will capitalize on the country’s position as the gateway to Asia and the cutting-edge regional information and communication technology infrastructures. The second element driving the city’s growth and development is the gradual attaining of a regional or global status as a high-tech hub. Both aims are driven by the need for an advanced and diversified technological platform that will enable the city to exploit its natural and human resources best, to sustain its economic prosperity and to respond to the global challenges of the 21st century.
Cyberjaya’s IT sector is the latest to embrace: The globalization trend, with several prominent telecom and telecommunication companies headquartered in the city. However, despite the presence of such large companies, the city’s IT development lags behind other metropolis’s in terms of both talent and capacity. A recent study by the World Wide Web Foundation and the Center for Technological Innovation showed that Cyberjaya ranks 16th out of the twenty cities surveyed for its IT industry. This was surprising to most analysts because the metropolis has one of the largest number of employees engaged in telecommunication companies. A Cyberjaya official stated that the city is still on the developing stage but it hopes to reach the same level as the leading telcos in the country.
The city’s prime business district: The Cyberjaya Business Centre (CBI), boasts of a number of IT parks and is home to the major international brands like Dell, IBM, Cisco, Sun Microsystems and others. The city boasts of a good business climate, offering the country’s low cost of living. The government has also planned to attract expatriates who have established their roots in the country. The IT exporters are now establishing the next wave of cyber centres in and around Cyberjaya, with plans to expand the existing ones.
These plans include a university, a research wing and a venture capital firm to support the development of the cyber-technology sector.