Taiwan Excellence’s “Stay-At-Home Economy” Starts Fight Versus Pandemic and Boredom

COVID-19 has affected tons of people, closed businesses and wreaked havoc in the economy. People stayed at home for the most, and got bored in the process. They started doing things left and right, and let their creative genius take the wheel.

Taiwan sets a good example of how to successfully contain the virus. Taiwan’s Bureau of Foreign Trade, Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) Deputy Director General Guann-Jyh Lee attributes these with the cooperation of all citizens and industries plus the measures they have taken while they stay-at-home. They want to share how they did it. For better health, they encouraged home workouts, to stay warm after sweating and be hydrated by water to fend off disease.

Taiwan Excellence selected three award-winning companies namely Strength Master, Victory and the AROFLY for the latest home exercise trends. Things that could better cardiopulmonary conditions, muscle strength, and overall health. Strength Master’s cycle boxer has interactive boxing games that can simultaneously train brain response. It also imoroves cardiopulmonary function. This makes it fun to do boxing! Muscle strength training also improves physique and immunity. Victory, got Olympics Weightlifting silver medalist Ying-Chi Lu to do weight training on Victory’s shock-absorbing mats. It reduces vibration and noise while lifting barbells. It just makes training at home an enjoyable feat. AROFLY used smart technology to move cycling into homes. Now with stats, everyone can workout smart at home and burn fat effectively.

This also raised sales of home and fitness products by 20 percent, helping tons of businesses survive during the pandemic. Taiwan Excellence has chosen the best of the best Taiwanese companies putting their seal on it. There are tons more of them who would likely celebrate Taiwan's zero new coronavirus cases, I envy them! Make sure to look for the seal when you buy products, Taiwan Excellence takes good steps in making your home smart and disease free, you're doing your share to fight against the disease and boredom.

Now I want my own bike from Taiwan :(

PLDT Enterprise Launches Beyond Fiber

Had the time of my life listening in to executives and media during the Beyond Fiber event. Their call is adapt, evolve, become better, faster, rediscover and reinvent. This is their way for us to step into a new day. They are offering Business Grade Fiber connections at 2,500 pesos a month plus a lot of other things.

Business Offers

In these difficult moments, growth takes place. It allows PLDT Enterprise to discover more despite the odds. This is beyond connectivity PLDT Enterprise offers, they call it Beyond Fiber.

They were excited to tell us about how PLDT Enterprise will support business enterprises.

Jojo Gendrano says “5-10 MBPS was okay before, about 80 percent are millennials and e-commerce consumers are included. We are now up by 25% in data usage, businesses of all sizes need to be connected and invested in infrastructure of about 322,000 km of fiber optic cables, and these are essentials to more reliable connectivity in the workplace. It goes to say they need IT support, cashless transactions, curated digital tools and service they deserve. They will have dedicated enterprise support to deliver more value for our end customers. For telecommute and work from home networks, we will provide the same policies as their offices for security and the guidelines they have.”

Gary Ignacio VP For Fixed Core Services PLDT Enterprise “We make sure to deliver at least 50 Mbps on Business Grade Fiber. A wifi fit for enterprise which is Cisco Meraki including cloud services to manage and view things remotely. This is ideal for stores and branches, enhanced security, separate business and customer networks to look beyond just fiber. This is just 2,500 per month including taxes. This includes Microsoft 365, included in packages. We also have ePLDT Cyber Security Endpoint Advanced Security, we will also work with PayMaya for credit card and cashless with QR codes. New easy to deploy wifi solutions, managed equipment so employees can connect to their network and do VPN if they are working remotely. ”

Orlando Vea of Voyager Innovations says “Cashless and Contactless solutions is King. There’s no need to prove that point now. For SME’s, you can do PayMaya. We are more about the digital wallet, we are here to help you get payment options like credit cards, debit cards, prepaid, online, give solutions like our big customers.”

They will be providing it FREE for the first three months. They want to be able to help and prioritizing needs accordingly. It’s available for businesses of all sizes, the idea is to provide stable fiber and build create support businesses. Beyond Fiber is a promise to enterprise customers, developed for SME’s in mind, to leverage the fiber and make it as cheap as possible to start up our economy. When it comes to Beyond Fiber, this will help a lot of people and make people thing about solid fiber solutions that businesses should get.

Wifi, landline, add ons like a secure network gateway (VPN via Cisco Meraki), other solutions soon. For existing customers, it will be seamless as it will be done like the upgrade process of PLDT. Only for Php 2,500. Now go ahead and ask about it, you’re going to make your network better and so much more!

Look Beyond Fiber!

UNIQLO Polo Shirt Collection for the Modern Man

UNIQLO is staple, where every occasion meets clothing from their racks. Their LifeWear philosophy still stands to create clothing for everyone and every occasion. Recently, they launched the UNIQLO Polo Shirt Collection. Using new styles, new fabrics, using state of the art textile technology, they've delved into what has been close to me style wise. I love polo shirts, and they did not disappoint in this line.

Refined but happy, smart casual too. Tops made of PET bottles are possible now with Dry Ex technology. They also have Airism to get that cool feel when you wear them, take a look at these pieces they released recently.

AIRism Jersey Short-Sleeve Open Collar Polo Shirt

Easy to wear which you can wear the whole day.

AIRism Pique Short-Sleeve Polo Shirt

Easy clean look with Airism. 

Cotton Oversized Short-Sleeve Polo Shirt

Inspired by workwear and military clothing.

Dry Pique Designed Short-Sleeve Polo Shirt

Max comfort in clothing that dries fast.

Dry Pique Short-Sleeve Polo Shirt

Dry characteristics using Kanoko material for a more smooth and comfortable feel.

DRY-EX Pique Short-Sleeve Polo Shirt

This one dries sweat and moisture quickly. It also has anti-microbial and anti-odor tech made up of 42% recycled polyester from PET bottles. Amazing!

All good everyday clothing which you can get at UNIQLO Philippines’ website  https://www.uniqlo.com/ph/product/men/tops/polo and social media accounts on Facebook (facebook.com/uniqlo.ph) or Twitter (twitter.com/uniqloph) and on Instagram (Instagram.com/uniqlophofficial).

PLDT Enterprise x AIM for Local Hackathon Against COVID-19

I have been in hackathons in the past and this one is pretty amazing as PLDT Enterprise through PLDT Innolab just recently launched their partnership with AIM (Asian Institute of Management) to propose and work on digital solutions to help battle COVID19. The pandemic has disabled tons of companies and set the whole world in turmoil and this event is set to generate innovative ideas from professionals across the country and try to rid problems brought about the virus.

They called it Bayanihan@AIM. Over 70 teams from different places in the Philippines, winners were given mobile phones and cash prizes to deserving teams. PLDT Innolab has been supporting different organizations and collaborated with AIM and ADB in this enterprise. They worked on three themes namely Food Security, Jobs and the future of work. JoJo Gendrano the FVP and head of PLDT Enterprise and Core Business Solutions was also there to witness their efforts. 

The Hackathon ran from April 27 to May 10 and was participated by schools and young professionals. Amherstia Ojerio and Rosette Astoriano won the Food Security challenge with Urban Farming with a build operate transfer model. Kevin Sison, Carmelita Esclanda, Elijah Medina and Naman Punit won the Jobs challenge with their inclusive platform with e-learning and job matching. Michael Kakumoto, Jann Teng, Ariel Silva Jr. did the MSME challenge by making digital tools to manage customers to increase productivity even under these COVID19 ECQ/GCQ conditions. 

AIM President and Dean Jikyeong Kang was also present and lauded the efforts of PLDT Enterprise for doing this. 

This is such a successful partnership, wish I could be there too.