I had the privilege of facilitating a series of workshops last month participated in by young Davaoeño innovators and entrepreneurs and I am so inspired and full of hope for the city’s future.
Just when I was starting to feel demoralized with many sad stories from fellow citizens about how our city is losing its competitive edge, my interaction with our new generation of young leaders from the private sector and the academe energized me.
I realized I was focusing my attention on the political noise and the preoccupation with who are running (or not running) our national and local governments. Being with enterprising Davaoeños reminded me that Davao City’s growth has always been led by its citizens and local innovation has always been private-sector driven.
The history of Davao would teach us that we progressed not because of politicians and the government, but in spite of them.
When Councilor Pilar C. Braga, Chair of the Davao City Council Committee on Education, Culture and Arts, Science and Technology, asked me to help in the process of creating a road map for innovation in the city, I recommended that we include as many and as diverse people as possible in the process. I also proposed that we get many young people on board for we are a young city, they are one-third of our population. The youth are now the majority and they must lead now when they have the energy, time, and optimism.
Councilor Braga is the author of City Ordinance No. 0546-21, otherwise known as the Davao City Inventions and Innovation Center (DCIIC), that was signed into law by then Mayor Sara Z. Duterte, on May 7, 2021. This makes Davao City the first local government unit in the country to institutionalize innovation and mainstream it in local governance and development.
The ordinance is the localization of at least five (5) national laws, namely: (1) RA 7459 – Investors and Inventions Incentives Act of the Philippines in 1992; (2) RA 11293 – Philippine Innovations Act of 2019; (3) RA 11337 – Innovative Startup Act of 2019; (4) RA 10055 – Philippine Technology Transfer Act of 2009; and (5) RA 7368 – Countrywide Industrialization Act of 1992.
The Davao City Inventions and Innovations Council is also created to set the policies and directions of the Center. It is tasked to supervise the implementation of its programs and projects as well as formulate its annual budget. Under the ordinance, the Davao City Investment and Promotions Center (DCIPC) will serve as the Secretariat of the Council.
The workshops I facilitated involved various stakeholders from the following national government agencies: the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI); the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT); and the Department of Science and Technology (DOST). These are the main agencies in the forefront of innovation on the national level. And I am very impressed by the quality of inputs from and the passion for innovation of the local stakeholder participants.
We started our workshops finding our WHY. Why do we want to innovate in the first place? Why are we going to do this? We must find out what it means for all of us if we are to be inspired to work together to reach our goals and create a road map that makes sense to all of us.
They say answering these three questions will help us find our why: (1) What is important to you? (2) What are you good at? (3) How could the world be improved? Finding the answer that overlaps the three would be your why.
During the workshop, the participants grouped themselves into teams and they collectively answered the purpose of Davao City’s innovation efforts by finding the overlap of the following: (1) Values – principles and beliefs Davaoeños share and hold sacred and dear; (2) Strengths – Davao City’s capabilities, comparative and competitive advantages over other cities; and (3) Contribution – Davao City’s role in making the country and the world better.
And I am awestruck with what we came up with. They all agreed that diversity and inclusion are the most cherished Davaoeño values. And the strength of Davao City is its people’s ability to collaborate and be creative. Making our contribution to make the world better is the creation of a model of inclusive innovation.
I did not expect to get these brilliant and meaningful responses from the new generation of Davaoeños. They believe the reason for embarking on this innovation project is so we can create a model of innovation that includes everyone, and solves our city’s problems in a way that serves a diversity of peoples with different circumstances and needs.
I love that our young leaders are community-oriented and their solutions to our social problems are rooted in addressing social inequalities and promoting peace. Their innovation dreams are not motivated by personal fame or fortune, but by genuine care for others and the world as a whole.
This community spirit is evident when they all shared what they have been doing in their own spheres of influence. With little government support but with a lot of creativity and passion for the city they love. One participant said: “We have done so much with little or no support from the government, imagine what we can do when we have full government support!”
When asked what government support they need, they did not ask for much. Just more physical spaces where they can collaborate and work together. These digital natives turn out to want more face-to-face interactions. They said the energy is much different, more dynamic, and more fun when they are sharing the same physical space and time.
They also asked for more events where they can learn from each other and share stuff they are working on. They are not even asking the government to organize them since they are more than capable of organizing these events themselves. They just need the resources to bring more people together and support their creative process.
No doubt that Davao City must innovate in order to survive. Our young Davaoeño innovators believe the purpose of innovation is to solve our social problems (and it is not necessarily all high-tech solutions) and to make lives better for our people and sustain this development for generations to come.
Our rich discussions did not even touch on “being the best among the rest” but just being the best for Davao City and for ALL Davaoeños. This makes me so proud of our new generation of citizens in the city. And because of them I am not so worried about our future as a city anymore. ###
