The Interactive Solutions Outsource Asia Incorporated, located at the East Block I.T. Park at the Circumferential Road in Bacolod City, begins operations today.

It is the first IT Center in the city to begin operations.

IO, a joint venture of prominent local entrepreneurs and the Canadian Solutions Company, has put up a 100-agent call center that will offer telemarketing services and engage in inbound campaign.

"We saw that Bacolod and the Province of Negros Occidental have the people, the institutions and schools that can support the industry," IO Asia president and general manager Fernando Gonzales said yesterday.

He also noted that Bacolod has had fiber optic cable since 1988.

"Together with the IT Team headed by Mayor Evelio Leonardia and Councilor Jocelle Batapa-Sigue, we have been continuously meeting with the academic institutions to share information and skills because we want to see an increase in English proficiency," he said.

Batapa-Sigue said the IT Team met with the National Educators Academy of the Philippines, who said Bacolod is their pilot area in terms of teaching high school and elementary teachers how to teach effectively.

The IT Team assured the call centers that it will continue to partner with the institutions to the point of encouraging them to give intensive training for these teachers, she said.

"We are looking at business process outsourcing, which could be a very rich source of employment for the people," she added.

Frank Lai, GT-CTI Canada vice president and general manager, said their call center in Bacolod is their first in the Philippines.

Canadian Senior Trade Commissioner Ellen Ruth Zeisler said they are very much encouraged by the commitment of not only the local businessmen but of the community and the educational system in Bacolod City.

"It is not the question of current capacity in English proficiency, it is the fact that you wish to really want to enhance that capacity and you have partners from Canada who are willing to work with you," she said.

You have a mayor and a city that is focussed on looking at what you need in order to build the capacity of the next generation, Zeisler said

. "If this kind of partnership between the Canadian and Filipino companies continues, you've got the future right here now," she said.*CGS

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