"Starts from a Simple Idea"

For our second feature of our personalities in the technology sector, I'd like to share with you someone who is one of the luminaries in the academic community and he is also involved with one of the biggest computer organizations in the Philippines.

His specializations are into computer technology, geographic information systems and database.

He has doctorate, masters and undergraduate degrees in Computer Science at the De La Salle University in Manila.

Some of research works made by him and/or his team were published in various publications.

He is no other than Dr. Caslon Chua, Dean of Computer Studies at the De La Salle University.

Herewith is my interview with him about his work, his projects and accomplishments and his insights for our future innovators.

Melvin: What is your vision for the College of Computer Studies?

Dr. Chua: My vision for the college is that it will keep on doing researches that contribute to the field of computer science. It will continue to come up with innovative ideas and not simply focus on developing applications.

One has to understand that software development is only a small part of the research process. It always starts with an idea no matter how small or simple; then it continues to grow ensuring its contribution to the scientific community. This may be a long process, but we are committed to be creative, patient and enduring.

Melvin: Can you share some of the latest researches being done at the College?

Dr. Chua: Currently the college has been doing substantial researches in the field of natural language processing (NLP) specifically on the Filipino language. Work on NLP ranges from the ability to automatically evaluate essays to detecting plagiarism among students submitted computer programs. Technical work includes the analysis of the Filipino language for subsequent processing by computers.

We also have researches done in the field of artificial intelligence and digital signal processing among others.

Melvin: Can you share some of the scientific papers that were published both locally and internationally?

Dr. Chua: Please find below some of the recently presented scientific papers from our college

• Cheng, C. et al 2008. e-Wika: Philippine Connectivity Through Language. In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Filipino as a Global Language. University of Hawaii, March 17-19, 2008.


• Chua, C. et al 2008. Three Dimensional Model Graph Derivation for Path Traversal. In Proceedings of the 8th Philippine Computing Society Congress (PCSC 2008). UP Diliman, February 23-24, 2008.


• Cu, J. 2008. A Text-to-Speech System for Counting in Filipino. ADD-3 School of Applied Natural Language Processing for Linguistics Diversity and Language Resource Development. Bangkok, Thailand, Feb 25 – March 1, 2008.


• Pantola, A. 2008. Epsilon: Information Security. In Proceedings of the 8th Philippine Computing Society Congress (PCSC 2008). UP Diliman, February 23-24, 2008.


• Pineda, M. 2008. Promoting Innovative Technology-based Class Projects Using a Knowledge Sharing Mindset. In Proceedings of the Amazing e-Learning II Conference. Bangkok, Thailand. March 7-10, 2008.


• Cabredo, R. 2008. Extending Shape-based Similarity Measures for 3D Models. In Proceedings of the 8th Philippine Computing Society Congress (PCSC 2008). UP Diliman, February 23-24, 2008.


• Suarez, M. 2008. Design and Use of an Open Individual and Group Student Model for Learning Object-Oriented Design Using UML. In Proceedings of the 8th Philippine Computing Society Congress (PCSC 2008). UP Diliman, February 23-24, 2008.

Melvin: How do you see the impact of having Microsoft Innovation Center under the College?

Dr. Chua: The Microsoft Innovation Center provided a venue for both faculty and students to work together on creative projects. We see it as a commitment from the industry to assist the academe in providing a venue to generate and cultivate new ideas. It is also a venue where industry can find out what the academe is doing in generating new ideas.

Melvin: In your collaborations with other industry players such as CA Philippines and Microsoft, what do you consider some of the outputs of such partnerships?

Dr. Chua: Currently, partnerships with industries are still limited to the on-the-job training for the students. To some extent, we are able to invite industry experts to handle portions of the courses as guest lecturers with or without a partner faculty member. This way, we are able to provide students with a different perspective in some of the courses in the curriculum.

Melvin: As one of the stakeholders in the Computing Society of the Philippines, how will it be of help to the current state of our ICT education? Especially in the provinces?

Dr. Chua: As one of the stakeholders in the Computing Society of the Philippines, we are committed to bring about the culture of scientific research into our educational institutions doing ICT education. This is currently proving to be a challenging task, as many institutions accept any work on application development as research. Works that focus on the development of an accounting system, payroll system and enrollment system are sometimes being termed as research. But we have to start from somewhere. Today we are seeing faculty members from different institution realizing the importance of scientific research and its meaning.

In the Computing Society of the Philippines, we provide a local venue for faculty members to learn and share researches from different parts of the country. We hope this will encourage the faculty members to be pro-active in initiating a culture of doing research in their respective institution.

Melvin: What are the emerging local innovations that can be valuable this year?

Dr. Chua: For now, I can not mention any.

Melvin: How does the Web 2.0 technology evolving in the academic community? Particularly, is it now being utilized by the College?

Dr. Chua: Personally I don’t have a direct experience in developing applications using Web 2.0 technology. Therefore I cannot comment on how it is evolving in the academic community. To date, it is currently the technology we discuss and introduce it in some of our courses, however we do not have courses that specifically teach it.

Melvin: Your thoughts and insights for our future innovators?

Dr. Chua: Often times the best innovations starts from a simple idea, who would have thought that a single mouse click process used in a website can be patented?

The key idea would be to make the use of ICT easy and intuitive for people. It is to be noted that people who uses ICT are varied, thus we have to target only specific group. In order to be successful, one has to have creativity and patience.

Many success stories come from those who love to create new things and are committed to take care and improve on the things that they created. Many people takes the first step to create, but loses out on commitment. Like preparing a garden, it is always fun to start it out, being creative to get the right landscaping. But it takes patience to care for the plants, in order to enjoy the blossoming of the flowers and bearing of the fruits later on.

The first step to success is the feeling of being appreciated by the community given the knowledge that you freely share.

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