To forge, nurture and institutionalize the special industry-academe linkage, a set of sustained efforts from both ends were exerted to ensure the success of the program, the significant milestones of which were laid below. PLM’s initiatives and experiences are now serving as the bible for best practices in the whole Philippines.

• 19 Mar 2009: Shortly after joining PLM as the new ITC Director with a presidential mandate to institute essential technological reforms of great impact to the PLM community, initial exploratory talks were made with Microsoft officers (who are also PLM alumni and his academic protégés) in terms of helping their alma mater achieve a higher plenitude of technological innovation in which PLM has been lagging behind. This linkage program was chosen on the basis of the many benefits that may be derived by PLM, most notable are those that would not incur any cost for PLM

• 22 Jul 2009: Start of planning with Microsoft for a special industry-academe linkage program

• 14 Aug 2009: First formal meeting with Microsoft on the official email service provisioning for PLM for the first time in PLM’s history; Subsequent meetings followed with various leadpersons of Microsoft

• 01 Sep 2009: Email service was officially created, joining other leading universities in the whole world in providing this essential electronic service to its academic and service community

• 14 Sep 2009: Microsoft selected 3 PLM Live@edu student-ambassadors (the first ever in the Phils)

• Sep 2009: Start of sustained public announcements propagated widely thru various media that the official PLM email will be made available to the entire PLM community and to subsequently serve as a gateway to the portal of IT-based services in PLM like Internet access and the like
     21 Sep & onwards: Public announcement thru the SMS group broadcast to PLM officials & scholars
     05 Oct & onwards: Public announcement thru the PLM Website reaching even the overseas alumni
     14 Oct & onwards: Public announcement thru the PLM InfoBoard broadcast to the PLM community
     19 Oct & onwards: Published in the widely circulated Ang Pamantasan’s official newspaper issues
     21 Oct: Circulated a memo to all offices; Enlarged copies conspicuously posted all over PLM

• 26 Oct 2009 & onwards (Enrollment for 2nd Sem, SY 2009-2010): Distributed the official PLM email to thousands of scholars, staff and faculty members; To support public services, frontline offices were also given (i.e., Registrar’s Office for requests for TORs & multinational companies’ official requests for credential verification of PLM graduates [Unofficial Yahoo email is unacceptable to outside entities], etc.)

• Oct 2009: PLM did not only usher into a new milestone of providing official emails to thousands of PLM stakeholders for the first time in its history, but also clinched the distinction as the “first university in the Philippines to deploy the worldwide Live@edu program in full scale”

• 13 Nov 2009: Ceremonial signing of the Certificate of Partnership during the Commitment Day at UAC; Microsoft recognized the distinction and success story of PLM in providing essential communication services; Microsoft extolled the virtues of supporting educational institutions as its main CSR advocacy

• 19 Nov 2009: All offices and colleges were informed, in a meeting at the TOP Room, of the expected upcoming innovations, including the use of the official PLM email address for communication & various purposes thru the unit representatives composing the TWG for the updating of institutional information

• Dec 2009: Microsoft’s Christmas giveaway of prizes for the regular users of official PLM emails

• Jan 2010: As publicly announced several times since Sep 2009, the official PLM email addresses started to serve as a gateway to the portal of IT-based services after another information drive was conducted; E-mail portal link in the PLM Website was created for easy access by the PLM community

• 02 Feb 2010: Start of the monthly IT Literacy Training Program (ITLTP c/o Microsoft) for deans and faculty members (2 batches, AM & PM sessions, PLM Library Internet Station). Note: The IT Literacy Training Program for PLM officials started on 27 Nov 2009 thru another linkage c/o SMART

• 24 Feb 2010: Microsoft co-sponsored the 7th PLM-CMC Foundation Day with an infodrive session on the use of the official PLM email and allied learning services of Microsoft’s Live@edu program

• 16 Mar 2010: Microsoft's Singapore-based director for Asia-Pacific, Mr. Steve Haite, visited the Philippines and PLM (for being a pioneer and leader in formulating and implementing the best practices in the Philippine setting for this worldwide program of Microsoft).




Back to Top