Considered to be the largest ICT and IT Security conference in the Northern Philippines, the 3-day consortium was held recently, with each day having different tracks.
According to a recent report, the Tuguegarao Consortium (TCON) National IT Conference focused on three tracks: IT Security, Debug, and Pitch Please.
Organised by HackTheNorth.PH, participants for the event came from different private and public institutions in the country as well as visitors from Singapore, Japan and the USA.
The event was targeted for the students and professionals, in the North, who want to upgrade their skill set, but cannot do so because of their lack of financial capacity to attend similar events in Metro Manila.
The first day focused on IT Security wherein proofs of concepts were shown through live ethical hacking, and discussions on the current threat landscape as well as protection and mitigations.
The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) was represented by its Central Office Communications Development Officer who stressed on private-public partnership and the country’s Cyber Security Resiliency programs.
The Department of National Defence followed with a talk entitled “Cyber Threats in the Philippines on a Defence Perspective.”
A member of the Philippine National Police Region 02 Anti Cybercrime Group (ACG) discussed RA 10175 or the “Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012”, and their initiatives in combatting cybercrimes.
Topics such as First Line of Defence; Mobile Security; and Modern DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service) Attacks and Car Hacking were also discussed during the course of the day.
The second day was dubbed as “Debug: Developers Convergence”. It revolved solely on development and programming talks as well as the introduction of current technologies.
Some of the topics discussed on the second day included Hacking with Chatbots; Website Performance and Optimisation Essentials; and Introduction to Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning through Graphene.
A Programmer from the Department of Science and Technology – Metals Industry Research and Development Centre (DOST-MIRDC) discussed the Serverless Firebase App.
The rest of the second day was spent on talks that tackled Front Development with Angular; Back End Development Intro to API; and UX Processes in the industry.
The last day, which was called “Pitch Please”, was anchored on technopreneurship, start-up pitching and career mentoring activities coupled with networking and linking with the sponsors, partners, speakers and organisers.
The day began with a keynote speech on blockchain, which was followed by the topic called, “Hacking your ICT Career.”
A speaker who failed to attend the conference was still able to deliver her speech by maximising technology and doing a virtual live talk.
Addressing the audience composed of professionals, students and technopreneurs, a talk was delivered on plenary mentoring for start-ups.
The talk answered questions on: the What, the How and the Why; as well as tips on the proper way to do elevator pitches.
The end of the day saw a Pitch Please competition participated by different high schools, wherein a project on Arduino sensors won.
For the College/Professionals category, a Mobile Applications for Travel and Booking won.
The company behind the event has acquired a regular seat to the local government unit’s ICT Council as a representative of private IT organisations.
Moreover, they have also provided mentorships to accelerating and incubating start-ups.
