LEVERAGING on the government’s thrust to digitalize education in the country, Filipino-owned company ABC Tech Ventures Inc. bared its plan to diversify its product portfolio from tablet to laptop.
The computing devices will be released in the third quarter of 2024, targeting students before the next school year begins, according to ABC Tech Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Arvin Arik Carranceja.
Based on the firm’s research, Filipino students frequently broke their gadgets due to accidental dropping.
“So we concentrate on what is the best solution to that problem,” he told reporters in an interview. “We design our products to be thick for dustproof and shockproof so that even if you drop it, it will still work.”
Unlike their previous partnership with the government for their existing lineup of tablets, these computing devices will be available in retail.
“We kind of innovate them. The specs [of the processors] would be i3, i5 and i7. They are already mid-level since the design is for education. They will have little graphic cards for gaming,” Carranceja noted.
He added that the upcoming laptops will use the latest Windows operating system, with an expandable RAM (random-access memory).
With students who usually have limited budget in mind, these gadgets will cost between P10,000 to P20,000 each. “We lowered the price so that the affordability will reach the capacity of the buyers,” said the CEO.
ABC Tech is now in the testing stage of its durability for six to eight months. The laptops will be produced in its China factory manned by Filipino engineers and software developers. The company expects the market to be big given the 33 million student population in the country at present. “The last SONA [State of the Nation Address] of President Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr. revealed his administration’s target of providing one student, one laptop or tablet. So we are targeting that,” Carranceja shared
On the other hand, the firm is finalizing its development of a software program, called the “Teacher in a Box”, which will be presented to the Department of Education and the Department of Information and Communications Technology. “We know many provinces and towns that do not have Internet access. So the ‘Teacher in a Box’ is an access point with a server that even if you don’t have Wi-Fi, you can still watch movies and videos, particularly the learning modules,” he said, while citing its wide coverage of 5- to 10-kilometer radius that can reach households.
Meanwhile, Carranceja announced his candidacy as national executive vice president for the Junior Chamber International or JCI Philippines’ national elections in the first week of September.
If ever he wins, the 34-year-old candidate revealed his objective to handle all the national programs of the organization, with focus on helping attain the United Nations Sustainable Goals. “My main goal is to align the projects of nongovernment organizations [NGOs] to the government’s,” he underscored.
