By Tyrone Jay V. Samson

Reinforcing the notion that DMC College Foundation is one of the leaders in Information Technology education in the whole of region 9, the DMC College of Computer Studies (CCS) recently sent two representatives to the 7th National Conference on IT Education (NCITE) held at the Capitol University (CU) in Cagayan de Oro City last October 21 to 23.

Mr. Harvey Dalmacio, PSITE National Board/Vice-dean of DMC-CCS (right most) together with Dr. Randy S. Gamboa PSITE National President, and Board Members poses with Atty. Adel Tamano, the NCITE '09 keynote speaker.

DMC CCS Vice Dean Anthony Harvey Dalmacio and Philippine Society of IT Educators (PSITE) Region 9 President Jovanie Talaroc were among the IT educators on hand to discuss the recent innovations, problems and possible solutions in IT education in the country.

Among those in attendance to partake in the IT knowledge-sharing include Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila president, Atty. Adel Tamano; CU president, Atty. Casimiro Juarez, Jr; members of the PSITE 2009 National Board headed by their president, Dr. Randy Gamboa of the University of Southeastern Philippines; and regional PSITE Chapter presidents all over the Philippines.

One of the highlights of the event were the speaking engagements given by two esteemed professionals of the IT profession. The first speaker was University of the Philippines-Los Baños (UPLB) – Laguna Institute of Computer Science Associate Professor Vladimir Mariano, Ph.D. who presented his “Research Topics in Digital Image Process and Computer Vision.” The other speaker was the head of the Center for Emphatic Human-Computer Interactions of De La Salle University-Taft in Metro Manila, Merlin Teodosia Suarez, Ph.D. Suarez talked about the topic “The Novel Problem of Emphatic Space Development.”

Mr. Jovanie Talaroc, PSITE-IX President/IT Coordinator of DMC-CCS, Ms. Grace Sojor, PSITE-IX Vice-President/Research Coordinator of COMTECH, together with PSITE-IX Members poses with Atty. Adel Tamano.

Moreover, the NCITE also featured 13 research papers all vying for the recognition of being adjudged as the Best Paper of 2009. And this year’s honor was given to Ralph Selga and Vladimir Mariano, Ph.D of the Institute of Computer Science in UPLB – Laguna with their research paper titled “License Plate Classification and Binarization.”

Other research papers presented include  “Genetic Algorithm: An Implementation to Class Scheduler System” by Albert Geroncio Rivera, Elia Grace Limbaga, Justin Fred Opeña, Honeylet Laput, and Dave Marcial of the Silliman University College of Computer Studies in Dumaguete City; “The Realtime Monitoring of Water Turbidity Using Image Sequence Analysis” by Cedric Kim Sarmenta and Vladimir Mariano, Ph.D. of UPLB – Laguna Institute of Computer Science; “A Stochastic Modeling of the Optimum Cycle Time of Selected Intersections in Cagayan de Oro City” by Maridee Bitalac Adiong of CU College of Engineering in Cagayan de Oro; “Capturing the Dynamics of Pedestrian Traffic Using a Machine Vision System” by Louie Vincent Ngoho and Jaderick Pabico of UPLB – Laguna Institute of Computer Science; “Data Signatures for Traffic Data Analysis” by Jasmine Malinao, Richelle Ann Juayong, Francis James Corpuz, Jan Michael Yap and Henry Adorna, Ph.D. of the Department of Computer Science of the University of the Philippines-Diliman, Quezon City; “ICS-OS: A Kernel Programming Approach to Teaching Operating System Concepts” by Joseph Anthony Hermocilla of UPLB – Laguna Institute of Computer Science; “The Role of NLP Resource Formation for Benguet Languages to Education” by Dalos Miguel of the Saint Louis University’s College of Information and Computing Sciences in Baguio City; “Probabilistic Speech Recognition for Tagalog Lecture Video (PSRTLV) by Chuchi Montenegro of Silliman University CCS in Dumaguete City and Elmer Maravillas, Ph.D. of the Cebu Institute of Technology CCS in Cebu City; “Enriching Programming Instruction using Visualization” by Marianne Ang and Allan Sioson, Ph.D. the Ateneo de Naga University Computer Science Department in Naga City; “Vision-Based Ball-on-Bean Balancer with Fuzzy Logic Controller” by Engr. Elyred Baclaan (College of Engineering) and Elmer Maravillas, Ph.D. (College of Computer Studies) of the Cebu Institute of Technology in Cebu City ; “The Reduction-Buildup Algorithm (RBA) for Efficient Support Set Construction” by Jasmine Malinao, Richelle Ann Juayong, Unaiza Garnica and Henry Adorna, Ph.D. of the University of the Philippines-Diliman Department of Computer Science in Quezon City; and “Applying AI Technique to Automate Partially the Software Analysis and Design Phases” by Demelo Lao and Pam Claudine Artiaga of the University of the Philippines-Visayas Department of Computer Science in Cebu City.

The winning piece of Selga and Mariano of the Institute of Computer Science in UPLB – Laguna will be published in the Philippine IT Journal, which is an annual joint publishing of PSITE and the Philippine Computing Society.