Philippines agencies and Microsoft have announced joint initiatives to enhance AI adoption across government and industry, transform education and build a skilled workforce to support the Philippines’ National AI Roadmap.
Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) and the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) are currently in advanced stages of identifying use cases for the adoption of Microsoft 365 Copilot.
Undersecretary for the Competitiveness and Innovation Group at the DTI, Rafaelita Aldaba said that deploying Copilot for Microsoft 365 within DTI teams would help transform productivity and enable them to engage and connect with citizens to deliver better services.
BSP, DBM and DTI are also building proof-of-concepts with Azure OpenAI Service to streamline citizen services.
The firms seek to develop new applications with chatbot capabilities to improve the support they provide to citizens and employees.
Transforming education
Philippines Department of Education (DepEd) will be rolling out Microsoft’s AI-powered Reading Progress tool to approximately 27 million students within the national system.
A free application integrated into Microsoft Teams, the tool harnesses AI capabilities to support and track students’ reading fluency, specifically reading accuracy, speed, and pronunciation.
The Philippines’ Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) is also collaborating with Microsoft to narrow the digital divide and help equip over 100,000 women learners with AI and cybersecurity skills.
The tech giant said training will be developed in partnership with educational institutions and nonprofit and corporate organisations to provide learners with AI fluency training and work readiness.
The IT and Business Process Association of the Philippines (IBPAP) has unveiled plans to work with Microsoft to train people in the information technology and business process management sector.
Microsoft will help IBPAP equip organisations within the sector with the competencies to work iteratively alongside AI systems. These include critical thinking, complex problem solving, bias detection, and prompt engineering.
