Bringing the Philippines as Part of the Internet Evolution

Today is a very special day for me not only because I will be delivering my second speech project, this is also my 28th birthday! Well, I was so excited today to go to the MSE in Makati where we always hold our meeting. This meeting was also very special because this is a joint meeting between Butter N Toast and Silver & White Toastmasters Club, and the thought that the meeting was between two clubs, that made me more nervous especially now that I have just printed and finalized my speech. As I get out of the office so early, I proceeded to a nearby McDonalds to eat some Big Mac so I can have more power to deliver my supposedly “prepared speech” which will actually come out as half-impromptu speech. So, there you go, as I entered the venue is now quite like “Araneta Coliseum” because of the expanded room, I was so nervous that I don’t know what to do. I was wondering how I can be able to deliver my speech? Now, I’ve learned the technique of pretending to be higher than the people in the room, say, I supposed that I was the President or the secretary of the Department of Science and Technology who will deliver a very important technical speech entitled “Bringing the Philippines as part of the Evolution of the Internet”.

Here are my recordings for the proceedings:

• Edwin D. Vinas – Speech Project 2 “Bringing the Philippines as part of the Evolution of the Internet”


• Gege Suge – Speech Project 4 “What I Did For Love” – Very Good Speaker!


• RJ Laguardia – Speech Project 4 “Poker Faces and then Some” – Very Good Speaker! Actually one of the winners in the recently conducted Toastmasters contest!


• General Evaluation and Evaluators Speeches headed by Butch Syyap

Here is my supposedly prepared speech document but since I’m not allowed to read this, there are some parts in the speech proper where I actually paused and inserted sentences or actually deleted several ideas.


Bringing the Philippines as part of the evolution of the Internet
By Edwin D. Viñas
S&W Toastmasters Club
Speech Project #2 “Organize your Speech”
February 22, 2006

Filipinos are present-minded people… They barely think of the future. As I observed, what's important to most of the Filipinos are their present situation. If what they are doing are not giving them any happiness or not seeing the fruits of their labor in just a month or a year, they'll give up! What most Filipinos don’t realize is that, there are things that we do that may not have significance at present but will be of so much importance in the future just like the Internet which started as the simple interconnection of computers in 1977 to the now millions of computers interconnected forming the now so called information superhighway!

As a regular Internet user or someone who just checks email and chat with friends, have you ever asked what are the contributions of the Philippines in terms of Internet evolution? One way of finding out is to map the Global internet and see how large the Philippine Internet is. Did you know that the Philippine internet is just a dot when the Global internet is mapped? As you can see, the Philippine internet is being dwarfed by those networks in USA, Japan, Singapore, Thailand and other countries. [Show the map of the Global Internet and point the specific location of Philippine internet]

Could the small size of the Internet in the Philippines be attributed to our poor economy? Yes, the poor economic growth of the Internet can be attributed to coverage and growth of the country’s internet. The larger is the coverage of Internet in a country, the more prosperous is its economy. As for now, it's so sad to know that the Filipinos are just users of Internet. They're the ones who top the charts of not only SMS users but also the top users of Friendster, Yahoo messenger etc. It's good to know that we are top users of common internet applications, but have we developed any technology that we can claim our own in terms of Internet evolution? Have we developed technologies that contributed to the evolution of the Internet?




I tell you, the Internet was never built in one second, day, month, year or decade. It continues to evolve as the number users continue to grow, new applications continue to be developed and applied, and new technologies and users continue to make the Internet function as it designed to be, that is, to bring people together in one world despite of cultural and geographical diufferences. The Philippines, as of now, becomes just an end-user of the Internet and no noticeable contribution in Internet evolution. Not a single technolgy or product can be claimed by Filiponos as owned and developed by the Filipinos which created great impact in the global community. You know what, Philippines can be part of the Internet revolution by concentrating on three areas namely, network devices evolution, network technologies evolution, and software development evolution.In the area of Network Devices Evolution, Filipinos should focus on imagineering what lies ahead in terms computer and human hardware evolution. The Internet was once powered by expensive mainframes, then mini-computers, then microcomputers, then PDAs, mobile devices, embedded devices, and soon human networking?In the areas of Network Technologies, Filipinos should focus on developing new standards and technologies. The Internet was once developed as simple interconnection of computers using dialup technologies, then ISPs, then satellite, then wireless, then broadband DSL/cable, then virtual private networks (VPNs). All of which aims to develop technologies (protocols, communication medium, standards) that will enable high-speed applications to make every Internet user explore the Internet faster than the speed of light. What could be the future technology that will address bandwidth and cost so that ordinary citizens can be able to access the Internet as nearly as a free resource?Lastly, in terms of Software Applications, Filipinos should not be contented in using imported software applications. The internet is now being powered by thousands of software applications including network operating systems, which evolves from commercial to open source software application that interoperates with different technologies, applications and users. Also the development of small-sized operating systems for embedded systems continue to be the focus in bringing mobile and ubiquitous computing. Can Filipinos develop a software application that can be installed to human beings?

And so my fellow Toastmasters, let us therefore not focus on the current problems in politics in our country. Let us think of what we can do to contribute in bringing the Philippines as part of the Internet evolution. I just hope that Filipinos would someday realize how important it is to also think of totally using the Internet not just for emails and chatting but for developing new internet technologies. If only 85 millions Filipinos could be educated with how to maximize the potentials of the Internet, we could be bringing the Philippines into the forefront of Internet revolution.