Success Story of a Public-Private Partnership: TV5 MMDA Metro Manila Traffic Navigator

MMDA Chairman Francis Tolentino discusses something to Ms. Luchi Cruz Valdez over dinner at the Shangrila Edsa Plaza Hotel Palawan Ballroom.

When PNOY (last year's SONA) called for corporations to work together with the government one of the first to heed his call was TV5. For starters they never thought of anything like this in the beginning. After brainstorming one lonely night they noticed some of the traffic updates that MMDA had on their whiteboard; what's funny was they kept on erasing this valuable data. Minds met and they did the next obvious thing. They digitized this information and got it online. Now this valuable information is available and has been helping thousands of Filipino commuters in the metro!

Paolo Bediones and Cheri Mercado hosted the event!

Now ranked in the top 10 most visited sites in the country, the TV5 MMDA Metro Manila Traffic Navigation site was launched formally this August 1st, 2011. TV5 Executives, MMDA Government Officials and the media were there to witness a momentous event in Philippine history. Only a few hundred thousand pesos of tax payers and private funds were used to set this all up which I think is ingenious even if MMDA was poorly funded this year. They used it wisely on information technologies perfectly designed and executed for the local Philippine transportation scene. They thought of the commuters and the people behind the wheel. I couldn't be more happier when I used it that time!

True enough, I had to leave the event a little early than usual because I had to rush back to the office. I gave this a shot and saw that C5 was a little better than EDSA. I got to Eastwood without a hitch even if my cab driver was on a snails pace. The information was real time so I already knew the situation before I went there. It's practical and ingenious I wish I had thought of that!

Mr. Roby Alampay told the audience about when and how it started. It was really a meeting of the minds between them and the people at MMDA. Today they can tell more than just the traffic situation. They have a database that an later on be used for trending, metrics and what not. This is valuable information that wasn't used before this project came about.

Mr. Carlo Ople demonstrated how the iphone and IPAD app would work. He showed more than just the actual system view available on the web. The latest headlines they have for INTERAKSYON one of the flagship news programs under TV5 were also seen in the application. You can even save it for offline reading. It had a pretty nice interface too.

Ms. Luchi Cruz-Valdez said that it has always been the goal of TV5 to bring information to the people. They have been doing this already with their other programs and assures their news and current affairs programs via pushing information to the applications will deliver just that!

Check out their website http://mmdatraffic.interaksyon.com for the latest traffic updates in Metro Manila. Major roads are currently in the system but they will have more later on this year once upgrades are done. To TV5, MMDA and the Filipino People congratulations! This is the best news I've ever heard this year!


PS

Thanks to Nuffnang for hooking me up on this event!



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3M and Good Housekeeping Good Ideas Workshop

Good Housekeeping Good Ideas Workshop

The good people who make those excellent Post It's 3M Corporation Philippines and Good Housekeeping Magazine publisher Summit Media held a workshop entitled Good Ideas last July 30 at the event place of SM Megamall in Mandaluyong City. They brought along health, style and design experts along so people there would learn a thing or two about how to keep their homes organized, make it spick and span. I learned a couple of things too!

Dr. Patricia Santos-Abes is an Allergologist and head of the Allergy and Immunology Section of the Asian Hospital. She gave a lot of tips on how to keep the home and your family safe from allergens which causes countless diseases. Cleaning up and making sure you have some things that could filter your air were some of the few things she showed beneficial to everyone's health. Samples of what bad microbes and disease causing bacteria could do were shown to the public in that event. I took note on some of the obvious things but learned more about the products that could help eliminate the possibilities of me getting sick in the long run. There were also lessons about how pets can also carry these elements and made sure everyone knows how it would affect home owners if they keep these four legged family members inside the home. She gave some tips how to use Filtrete for Air Conditioning units and told us how it could do a lot of things for our health by improving indoor air quality and ventilation. That's just smart!

Also in that event was Johanna Victoria Acab - Faustino who is the Principal designer of Ideal Interior Design Services. Aside from being an Interior Designer, she's a well decorated herself LOL! She's a Cum Laude, graduated from UP Diliman and ranked third overall in the licensure exams 1998. Pretty and stylish, she made a great presentation about how people can simply get their simple homes jazzed up with a couple of style ideas and organize it with small knickknacks from 3M particularly the damage free hanging solutions from Command and the furniture savior Scotch Gard. We were also treated to some of her tips on storage solutions and how to maximize space. We also were shown how to get things together and how to achieve the real eclectic look. It's not a mumbo jumbo; but a pretty simple concept and a design philosophy. Pretty neat!

The event was hosted by Ms. Issa Litton-To. Beautiful isn't she?!

People who attended the event also participated in the games prepared by the organizers.
They won a lot of 3M products! Congratulations!

3M Corporation Philippines is starting off it's advocacy on home space management in the country and their solutions are phenomenal! Congratulations on holding a wonderful event!

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http://www.3m.com/ph

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Ang Babae Sa Septic Tank!

The title alone is a dead giveaway. How can you not have a hilarious time with Eugene Domingo and her antics on this indie film turned "soon to be blockbuster" coming on theaters this August 3, 2011. Yeah, it was jumpacked! They had to turn down about half a billion (more or less LOL) people outside the CCP theater, UP Theater where this was first shown.

How can they resist the charming, beautiful Ms. Eugene Domingo (shown here walking the red carpet) as she dares to swim something down there! Yes ladies and gentlemen watch as she swims on poo and win that elusive best actress trophy everybody wished for!

I'm a fan. I could not tell you how much I adore Ms. Eugene Domingo because she is so smart and can pick up a punchline from any given situation and still make you die from laughing inside the cinema. She plays the role of an actress called "Eugene Domingo" also in this film. You have to watch her make this indie film inside the indie film (no that's not a typo!) with hunky rockstar Kian Cipriano as her Director and the cool, good looking, calm and collected JM De Guzman as the Producer. Cai Cortez also plays as a PA in this movie... people behind the movie industry surely felt how she played the role so good in this movie and you definitely should watch out for that!

The STAR Ms. Eugene Domingo!

Hunk Actor - Rockstar Kian Cipriano of CALLALILY

JM De Guzman, another reason why you know you have to watch this film!

This was a dream role for Ms. Cai Cortez.
Working with Ms. Uge was a dream she said!

Make sure you watch them in your favorite SM Cinema outlets and soon on other movie theaters nationwide!

For those who were not able to go to the press conference, let me show you a couple of videos I took during that bit! I'm sure you'll love how they answered the questions from the media!

This is the biggest Cinemalaya film entry of all time! It won 5 awards so you better bring your A game in the cinemas come August 3! Make your family watch this if you want to have a good time! Here's the official trailer from Star Cinema!

Congratulations to the cast I'm sure my friends and I will watch this film!
I can't wait!

Watch Ang Babae Sa Septic Tank shown in theaters on August 3, 2011 nationwide!

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Ang Babae Sa Septic Tank ( Cinemalaya 2011 Official Entry )

The Western Union Network Challenge

Do you know how connected you are in Facebook vs the world?!
Their app can literally get that information, show it to you and more!

Life lessons can be learned from experience and we can't have enough of it. History in itself explains the who, what, when, where and how's of the country you live in and I'm glad I live in a noble one called The Philippines. Today, we have a few million people living outside the country that still send help to their relatives/friends here and it's like part of the culture. Almost every family in our 80 million strong population have one or two relatives elsewhere in the world and that plays a significant part in nation building; a fact that Western Union knows. They made a site that would graphically explain everything to the ordinary Juan/Pedro. Initiatives that impressed people like me who spends quite a lot of time in the blue collared industry.

You can also see graphical representations of different economic aspects here and around the world. You can see how ours fare versus other nations. You will see how much aid a country gets, export growth, foreign investment, remittances, GDP rates, import growth and population. This is essential to predicting and verifying the economic stability of a country. Without looking at previous data and comparing them to the current one today: not a single member would make sense.

When asked about the application and the site about its incapacity to earn or generate income, Ms. Angela Heng VP for Corporate Affairs said that they are doing this as service to help people better understand Western Union and its history. What a noble gesture from one great corporation celebrating it's 160th year in the business.


Since Western Union is one of the world's most connected corporations, they are looking for the most networked person in the world by the use of the Social Media network Facebook and a site they dedicated for this located at http://www.westernunionworld.com/yourworld. You can compare with your friends and show them how globally connected you are. Check out your Facebook photos after using the application and you'll get an idea how connected you are (in photos) too! Your personal score will also contribute to your respective country of residence; so the app will soon know who's the most geographically connected country.

I have my friends and family in around 29 countries around the world; and it was shown there too!

Since the Philippines is one of the most well connected people in the world, Western Union is using the data to be gathered with this application to also know how we would rank against other countries. If their theories are correct we probably would place second to one or more first world countries. Pretty amazing if you ask me. Would you want to rank first? Why don't you visit the site and use the application now; tell me how you fare against other Pinoys and people across the globe!

These guys already took the challenge; so why don't you?!

P.S.

Thanks to the generous people at Western Union because we'll have a contest about this! That's coming up in a few days! Watch out for that! =)


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