The country’s premier university, the University of the Philippines (UP), in partnership with leading fiber broadband and technology provider Converge ICT Solutions Inc., is training the information technology leads of UP campuses nationwide at the newly-inaugurated Converge Data Center in Angeles City, Pampanga, concretizing the collaboration between the two institutions under their memorandum of understanding signed on September 29, 2025.
The three-day program covers data center operations, server infrastructure, cloud and artificial intelligence technologies, cybersecurity, and sustainable technology practices. It is structured around the UP Data Center Staff Competency Framework — a nine-domain professional development framework the UP Office of the Vice President for Digital Transformation (UP OVPDx) released in November 2025 to professionalize IT operations across the UP System.
“The training directly addresses at least six of the framework’s nine domains — from governance and compliance to emergency response and business continuity,” said Prof. Peter Sy, Vice President for Digital Transformation, University of the Philippines System.
The Converge Angeles Data Center, inaugurated last March 20, is the Converge Group’s largest facility — a Tier III-certified complex designed for continuous uptime even under infrastructure stress. UP participants are touring its Security Operations Center, Data Command Center, Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) and Battery Room, Power House, and Satellite Earth Station. The data center followed international and industry best practices including ASHRAE, ANSI/TIA-942, and Uptime.
“The program offers something rarer than a signed agreement: a working model. Institutional IT partnerships typically stall between intent and execution — between the MOU and the measurable outcome. Here, UP personnel are not in a seminar room reviewing slides about data centers — they are standing inside one. That distinction is what separates digital transformation policy from operational readiness,” Sy pointed out.
“This training is proof that the UP–Converge partnership is not a ceremonial exercise,” said Sy. “Our people are inside a working data center, learning from the engineers, executives, and professionals who operate it every day. That is how we build real institutional capability — not through frameworks on paper, but through practice.”
Organized under the Converge University with support from the Converge Corporate Communications and Public Relations (CCPR) team, senior Converge executives led the training sessions together with outside experts, with support from global technology leaders H3C and Dell Philippines.
“Converge is committed to building digital capability not just within our company but across institutions that shape the country’s future,” said Converge CEO and Co-Founder Dennis Anthony Uy. “Working with UP — the national university — allows us to contribute directly to the next generation of Filipino technology leaders.”
While deepening the UP–Converge MOU collaboration, the immersion also advances two priorities under UP President Angelo A. Jimenez’s Strategic Plan 2023–2029 — Flagship Program No. 6 (Active and Collaborative Partnerships) and No. 10 (Digital Transformation).
It contributes to the UP OVPDx’s mandate of system-wide upskilling, structured around the Data Center Staff Competency Framework — an IT governance instrument aligned with ISO/IEC 38500 principles, that positions industry partnerships as essential to building institutional capacity in an increasingly digital higher education environment.
Anchored in the Framework, the immersion delivered concrete, measurable outcomes such as completed role-based certifications, established refresher training cycles, initiated paired skill audits and compliance reviews, and a regularly updated documentation system.
For Converge, the collaboration signals an expanding institutional role — from telecommunications provider to active contributor in national digital human capital development, as the Group expands its data center operations nationwide.
