(EID-025) “UNIVERSITY BASED DEVELOPMENT”

Thomas Lee, an early engineer of Silicon Valley fame says that a university touches the lives of everyone at one time or another. Mr. Lee, a Chinese-Filipino-American who is now a resident “Balikbayan” was so inspired by this belief, leading him to establish the University Consortium for Resource Networking (UNICORN) here five years ago. He patterned UNICORN after the Apple Consortium in the United States. Largely unknown to most Filipinos, he was the one who designed the Apple Printer that made the famous computer even more popular.

Just like all the other member organizations of the United National Integrated Development Alliance (UNIDA), UNICORN is focused on a single development concern, and that is education. Just like the other UNIDA members, it is aiming for improvement, and that is the improvement of education.

Being a member of UNIDA, UNICORN has a role to play in BETSA, the five advocacies to Build Homes, Eat Right, Think Green, Stay Safe and Always Learn. In particular, UNICORN has taken on the advocacy of “Always Learn”, which means that it will try to make education accessible not only to the usual students, but also everyone who wants to learn new skills.

As a means of increasing access to education, UNICORN is improving the income streams of its member schools, mainly through the consolidation of resources and technical assistance. Using his vast connections in the computer industries worldwide, Mr. Lee is bringing in hardware and software for the member schools to use.

As the universities touch the lives of everyone as Mr. Lee says, they could also become the driving force for local economic and social development, in line with the five areas chosen by UNIDA, namely Shelter, Health, Agriculture, Protection and Education or SHAPE for short. Everywhere in the country, there is always a university that could provide the expertise and manpower for these development programs.

Among its other initiatives, UNICORN is now working on a project that would produce top rate computer programmers, by enabling them to use the most affordable state-of-the-art hardware that could be found in the market. Another project aims to provide a centralized online enrolment system for its member schools, using a revolutionary “fill-able” form.