Betting on E-Commerce
This article is part of the eJournal USA issue "Enterprising Women, Thriving Societies."
By Andrzej Zwaniecki
Andrzej Zwaniecki is a staff writer with the State Department's Bureau of International Information Programs.
"I spend almost half of my life nowadays online. I use the Internet as the sounding board of my advocacy, thoughts, dreams and success. I experience failure through it as well. Without the Internet, I wouldn't be anywhere near where I am today." The writer of these words today is at the top of the information technology (IT) industry in the Philippines. She is Janette Toral, a business leader and one of the most successful IT entrepreneurs in the country.
KEEPING UP WITH TECHNOLOGY
Toral became fascinated with computers at a time when not many people owned them. As a teenager, she played with a spreadsheet program on her aunt's machine. In the mid-1980s, Toral studied computer languages and programs on her own and in computer schools. In 1989, she got her first job as a computer tutor. Since then, her professional career has branched out in many directions, following the Internet's development and the IT sector expansion.
"I realized early that information technology keeps changing fast," she said. "So I knew I couldn't focus on just one type of software or activity."
As she acquired new skills, her activities covered many areas. Toral has been called a consultant, trainer, educator, lobbyist, blogger, researcher, writer, ambassador, community leader and "the mother of electronic commerce law in the Philippines." These labels describe not only the broad range of her professional ventures, but also the passion she invests in them.
BOOSTING PEOPLE'S POTENTIAL
However, the term Toral believes characterizes her best - social entrepreneur - is not among those used in her profiles. "I deal with issues not only to earn profits, but also to make things better in the market," she said. For example, she created the DigitalFilipino online community to educate her compatriots about e-commerce and facilitate knowledge sharing and business networking. The club offers members free training, for example, in search-engine and social-media marketing.
Toral is also called an Internet "evangelist," for good reason. She believes the Internet is reshaping the world and boosting people's potential because, thanks to it, "you can be who you want to be" and nations can accelerate their development and advance economically. That is why, in 1997, she founded the Philippine Internet Commerce Society and lobbied hard for the passage of an e-commerce law. The law passed in 2000, making it much easier for Philippine companies to conduct online business worldwide.
Toral views her greatest accomplishment, for which she received solid backing from other IT leaders, as somewhat incomplete. Since 2002, she has been campaigning for the application in the Philippines of the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) of standards - and later its successor, Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) - in developing software. CMMI certification, she said, would ensure a higher quality of software development and help Philippine software companies compete more effectively, particularly in the international market.
To help spread the idea, Toral used her own money to hire certified trainers from India and lobbied the government to lend its support to the concept. The government eventually agreed to do it, but it didn't address the issues she views as the ultimate goal - to make the Philippines capable of depending on its own CMMI trainers and assessors. "I continue to work on it," the tireless Toral said.
(This is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State.)
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