Arko, the award-winning flood-monitoring and extreme-weather mobile application of Pointwest Technologies Corporation, is one of the finalists for the 2015 ASEAN ICT Awards (AICTA). It is the only Philippine entry that made it to the final judging out of the ten submitted by various local companies to the competition.
An executive team from Pointwest led by Rene Canlas and Raymond Posadas will present the merits of Arko on September 15 before a panel of judges composed of ASEAN Telecommunications Senior Officials Meeting (TELSOM) leaders in Ninh Binh City, Vietnam. Arko is shortlisted under the Corporate Social Responsibility category.
The winners will be announced in November in Da Nang City, Vietnam during the ASEAN ICT Awards coinciding with the meeting of the ASEAN Telecommunications and IT Ministers.
Awards will be handed out in six categories: public sector, private sector, corporate social responsibility, digital content, start-ups and research and development.
AICTA seeks to “recognize the best ICT achievement among entrepreneurs across the ASEAN region” and the competition is one of the six Strategic Thrusts of the organization as stated in the ASEAN ICT Masterplan (AIM) 2015.
The objectives of AICTA include the promotion of creativity and innovation, provision of incentives for R&D efforts and to recognize advances in the adoption of ICT in the ASEAN region .
This is not the first international recognition for Arko. In February 2015, Arko became the first Philippine mobile app to win in the prestigious, UN-backed World Summit Award for Mobile (WSAm) In Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Arko also became the first winner of the Best Philippine-made Mobile Application of the Year in the 2015 International ICT Awards held in Manila.
Arko was developed by Pointwest for the use of the Nationwide Operational Assessment of Hazards (NOAH) project of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST), as a response to Typhoon Ondoy (International Name: Ketsana) in 2007. Filipinos are familiar with Project NOAH for its work in storm tracking and rainfall monitoring during storms. Arko was designed to help make NOAH’s flood data easily accessible by the general public, local government officials, private sector businesses and schools.
Anyone needing timely information about heavy rains and possible flooding can use Arko for decision making. Citizens can assess if it is safe to brave the routes to their destination. Businesses and school administrators can use Arko to help them determine if they should suspend work or school. Arko is free for download in Google Play and the Apple App Store.
Local government units (LGUs), which have Arko installed in their MOSES Tablets provided by Project Noah of the DOST, can help plan how communities should settle in areas prone to flooding or evacuate families if they are in harm’s way during heavy rainfall. Arko is being used for disaster management programs.
Pointwest Technologies is a leading 100 per cent Filipino-owned IT-BPM company. Since its founding in 2003, Pointwest has provided world-class IT services to companies, organizations and government agencies both here and abroad. Among its clients are top Fortune 500 companies and notable companies in the Asia Pacific region.
