📋 Tender Overview
MANILA – Among the priorities of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) is to help scale up innovations, its chief said on Monday.
"We want our technology producers to be sustainable, and for them to commercialize their research and innovations," DOST Secretary Renato Solidum, Jr. said in a Bagong Pilipinas Ngayon briefing.
He noted that scaling up innovations would generate more enterprises and jobs.
As of 2024, Solidum said about 23,000 jobs were created through the DOST's support for small enterprises technology upgrading program.
The DOST will launch this month a program called Elev8, focusing on eight research and development areas, the DOST chief added.
Elev8, he said, would include the establishment of artificial intelligence (AI) hubs and strengthening the capacity to use AI in infrastructure.
Agriculture, health and manufacturing are among the industries that the DOST is eyeing for AI use.
Data collection and analytics, as well as quantum technologies and quantum computing are the other focus in Elev8.
Industry 4.0 geared towards improving manufacturing, improving smart agriculture across the regions, and smart technologies are also lined up in the program.
Circular economy, wherein the DOST will find solutions to minimize waste and turn this into useful product; and biologics in pharmaceuticals complete the priority areas in Elev8.
Solidum admitted that some of these field would need the help of the private sector advisory council of President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.
"We need to ensure that our educational system would transform, so our students would learn these new technologies," he added.
