Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Tech Wishes for the Philippines



In this day and age, almost everything can be found in the realm of the Internet and done through the aid of technology. Sadly, the Philippines is not one of the technological leaders in terms of usage, implementation, and innovation.

There a lot of things to improve in our country, tech-wise, before we will be able to be at par with some of the foreign countries. For this article, let me enumerate some of my observations and thoughts on a couple of basic tech upgrades I wish our country to have.

Online Check-In in All Local Airlines

Online check-in and itinerary retrieval are very important features of airline websites. This airline company is known to be one of the firsts in Asia, and one of the major airlines with the biggest number of aircrafts. However, it is disappointing that until today, they still haven’t completed their online check-in facility. There’s no way to print itineraries or e-tickets too. To think, their affiliate – a budget airline – already has this capability on their website. What’s taking them so long?

One Card Pays All

Paying for buses, trains, taxi rides, convenience store purchases, etc. is such an easy task in countries such as Hong Kong and Singapore, thanks to their one-card-pays-all innovation. Whenever abroad, I am able to save a lot of time by loading just one card, which then can be used in stores apart from the different transportation means. If they can do it, why can’t our country implement it too?

Virtual Convenience Store

Traffic is a big issue in the Philippines, especially in Manila. Korea has already rolled out their virtual convenience store, where train passengers use their smartphones to scan the picture of the items they want to purchase. This virtual store is posted on the walls of their train stations, which allows consumers to choose what to buy as they wait for the train to arrive. Once paid using their phone, it will be delivered to their houses. Isn’t it cool and convenient?

Better Telco Signal

Telecom institutions in our country have a lot of improvement and upgrades to do. Other countries are able to provide good signal strength and data connection to users even when underground. Here in the Philippines, simply going through a tunnel will already show “SOS” and zero reception on phones. How frustrating can that be?

Universal Identification Card

This may seem to be a problem with the government, but I really wish our country could implement a universal ID for all of our government mandated memberships. If not, then I hope most offices can upgrade their websites to allow Filipinos to file new memberships and search for membership numbers within the confines of their home. And maybe utilize email to notify that the cards are ready for pickup. Don’t you think it’s already time?

I can go on and on in listing down my wishes for our country in terms of technological advancements, but one thing I would like to encourage everyone to do is – to be in the know and learn as much as you can with the Internet. Don’t go online simply to dwell on Facebook and Twitter; make it more worthwhile by reading, connecting with people, and getting ideas to help the Philippines be a more hi-tech country

This article is my 68th contribution to Manila Bulletin -- one of the Philippines' leading broadsheets -- published on May 14, 2012 (Monday) in the TechNews Section. You can view the PDF version here (lower left portion).

5 comments:

Cool. I'd add a better database for local places to that list -- foursquare and Google Places aren't enough! It'd make things like Siri (assuming it eventually works here) and online so much better!

I would love to have the Universal ID Card, it will lessen crimes. The One Card Pays All is important if we want to attract more tourists.

How many more years will it take before we get those? I hope soon!

--
Glenn Richmond Ong
BBM: 21A72197
+63917 864 5366
www.glennong.com

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