Arko – Finalist at 2015 ASEAN ICT Awards – CSR Category

wpengine
October 29, 2015

Arko, the award-winning flood-monitoring and extreme-weather mobile application of Pointwest Technologies Corporation, is aiming to add another feather to its cap at the 2015 ASEAN ICT Awards, or AICTA.

Arko has been shortlisted as one of the finalists in the CSR category.  As a finalist, Pointwest will have to present Arko to the ASEAN TELSOM Leaders, as judges, during the final round of judging this September 15, 2015 which is being held back-to-back with the ASEAN TELSOM-ATRC Leaders’ Retreat in Ninh Binh City, Vietnam.  It is the only Philippine entry  out  of 10 submitted in  the 6 categories  of AICTA that was  chosen and included in the  shortlist  of winners. 

An executive team from Pointwest led by Rene Canlas and Raymond Posadas will make a final pitch for Arko in the Corporate Social Responsibility category.  The final awards ceremony for the ASEAN ICT Awards will be held in Da Nang City in November. It will be part of the Meeting of the ASEAN Telecommunications and IT Ministers (TELMIN), for which Viet Nam is playing host for the first time. Awards will be handed out in six categories: the public sector, the private sector, corporate social responsibility, digital content, start-ups, and research and development. The panel of judges is composed of finance ministers and other officials from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), of which the Philippines is a founding member.

AICTA is a thrust by the telecommunication ministers of ASEAN, and is in-line with one of the six Strategic Thrusts of the organization as stated in the ASEAN ICT Masterplan (AIM) 2015. The awards seeks to “recognize the best ICT achievement among entrepreneurs across the ASEAN region.”

This is not the first international recognition for Arko. In February 2015, Arko became the first Philippine mobile app to win in the prestigious, UN-backed World Summit Award for Mobile (WSAm) In Abu Dhabi, UAE.  Arko also became the first winner of the Best Philippine-made Mobile Application of the Year in the 2015 International ICT Awards held in Manila.

Arko was developed by Pointwest for the use of the Nationwide Operational Assessment of Hazards (NOAH) project of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST), as a response to Typhoon Ondoy (International Name: Ketsana) in 2007.  Filipinos are familiar with Project NOAH for its work in storm tracking and rainfall monitoring during storms. Arko was designed to help make NOAH’s flood data easily accessible by the general public, local government officials, private sector businesses and schools.

Anyone needing timely information about heavy rains and possible flooding can use Arko for decision making. Citizens can assess if it is safe to brave the routes to work or to school.   Businesses and school administrators can use Arko to help them determine if they should suspend work or school. Arko is free for download in Google Play and the Apple App Store.

Local government units ( LGUs ) , who  have Arko  installed  in the  MOSES  Tablet  provided by Project  Noah of the DOST ,  can help plan  how communities  should settle in areas  prone to flooding  or evacuate families if they are in harm’s way   during heavy  rainfall. Arko has been used for disaster management programs.

Pointwest Technologies is the leading 100% Filipino-owned IT-BPM company of the Philippines. Since its founding in 2003, Pointwest has provided world-class IT services to companies, organizations and government agencies both here and abroad. Among its clients are top Fortune 500 companies and notable companies in the Asia Pacific region.