European Higher Education Institutions Participate in the EHEF 2012

Marking the 25 Years of the European Union’s Erasmus Scholarship Programme, the Delegation of the European Union to the Philippines in collaboration with the EU Cultural Group, EU Cultural Institutes and the Commission on Higher Education held the second ”European Higher Education Fair Manila 2012: Brighter Prospects” last November 14, 2012 at The Manila Peninsula Hotel. A total of 22 European Higher Education Institutions exhibited at the Fair which were open to the public for free from 2 to 8 pm last 14 November.

Hello Kitty Blogger Tour at SM North EDSA

Who doesn't love the adorable Hello Kitty? It has been the favorite character of not only little girls but even by adults who like to have the Hello Kitty merchandise as their collection, especially the rare items available in limited numbers or editions.Collecting these "toys" is no longer a kid thing. It's for everyone, even the boys who also love watching the cartoon incarnation of these creations.

Here is your chance to visit a place where Hello Kitty rules and will only be there temporarily until January 6. So continue to read on and find out all about what you can expect to see.

Swensen’s Philippines Launches “The Ultimate Ricecream” for the Christmas Season

Wazzup Pilipinas!

With its goal of providing a variety of new products to its sundae choices, an international ice cream sundae shop that started in San Francisco, California, introduces “The Ultimate Ricecream Sundaes”, five new delectable sundaes to satisfy a broader spectrum of customers.

We were invited to try out the latest Swensen’s mouth-watering concoctions focus on all-time Filipino favourites namely, ripe mango and sticky rice. They now have five variants of the Mango flavored RiceCream servings.

Established in 1948, Swensen’s opened his first ice cream parlor in San Francisco, California. Since then, for 64 years, more than 180 flavors of ice cream have been created and enjoyed by both young and old.

Dimsum Break Opens at SM North EDSA

Ribbon cutting ceremonies at Dimsum Break

If you're one of the "suki" of the best dim sum in Cebu, then you're in for a big surprise as Cebu's popular dim sum house has now opened its very first branch in Manila as well.

Dimsum Break, the fastest growing brand of Harbour City Dimsum House Co., Inc. (HCDHCI) based in Cebu, is now in Metro Manila. This new venture is the latest addition to HCDHCI’s growing chain of restaurants.

“This is our first fast food chain in Luzon, but including Visayas region, it is already our 16th branch. We are optimistic that this number will continue to increase. Our confidence is based on the significant investment and development we have put in the past five years to support our growing branch network,” shares HCDHCI Marketing Manager Steven Kokseng.

Updated Study Presents Business Risks and Opportunities for Four More RP Cities

In Chinese, two characters comprise the word crisis – the first signifies danger, while the next represents opportunity.

Guided by this, top environmental solutions provider World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF-Philippines) and Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) Foundation released the second version of a multi-phase study on climate adaptation for Philippine cities.

Manila Hotel Brings You a Healthy Feast at the Mabuhay Palace

 

After thousands of years, the Chinese way of dining still thrives and continues to inspire people to have a healthy lifestyle. Keeping this is mind, the Mabuhay Palace of Manila Hotel launches a revitalized vegetarian menu that reflects the Chinese view on food as nourishment and improves one’s health.

Using the freshest and best vegetable produce, these new veggie dishes are excellent sources of fiber, vitamins, and minerals. 

Laced Up by Adidas and HeavyBoogie

"LACED UP" on Thursday, November 22nd at Time, 7840 Makati Avenue, Makati City, Philippines.

Three (3) legendary Hip Hop DJs will be here to perform and entertain the local audience.

- Tony Touch aka Tony Toca (Anthony Hernandez) is hip hop icon. A certified Brooklyn NYC mixtape king, producer (1 million records sold worldwide), radio host, artists and a member of the legendary Rock Steady Crew, he is recognized as one of the most dynamic club rockers on the planet.

Learn to Launch WarmUp Event on November 23

Accenture Manila Delivery Center is holding a warmup event in support of the DevCon Code Challenge Cup (C-Cup) [http://e.devcon.ph/c-cup] on Nov 30.  Titled "LEARN to LAUNCH", the event aims to allow the participants to deploy a social media app in 4 hours using the Eden PHP Library  (http://eden.openovate.com/) developed by Openovate Labs.

Easy to learn and Speedy to deploy will be the motto of the attendees after getting their hands dirty with Eden.  Rapid prototyping will never be the same again.

November 23, 2012; 6:00 PM to 12:00 AM
Accenture Ideas Exchange
7th Floor Robinsons Cybergate Center Tower 1
Pioneer Street, Mandaluyong City
Registration and dinner: 6:00 PM.
Program begins at 7:00 PM.

* FREE EVENT for professionals only

About the Speaker: Christian Blanquera is the Co-Founder and Technology Head of Openovate Labs.  http://www.galleon.ph/, http://www.kosmos.com.ph/ and http://taghuddle.com/ are some of the site created using Eden. Christian also created another site (http://www.workinspire.com/) using Eden which recently qualified for the Launch Garage (http://launchgarage.com/) accelerator program of
Globe's Kickstart.ph and Proudcloud.

Ref:
http://www.accenture.com/Microsites/technology-sessions/Pages/register-form2.aspx
or
http://www.xvr.in/Jyb

Winners of the Bigas (Big Ass) Hackathon

Congratulations to the PhilRobotics A Team with their App named Envilog for winning the Most Innovative App award. The team is composed of Franklin Binos II, Richard Myrick Arelaga, Johnaray Dimaunahan, and Wayne Dell Manuel.

Envilog is a stand-alone temperature and humidity sensor with real-time GSM-based data sending and offline data collection and web-based visualization.

IRRI will host this team for another week so they can create the actual app!

From the YouTube video uploads of the event:

"During a 2-day event (10-11 November 2012), the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI; http://irri.org) and wireless services provider Smart Communications, Inc. (Smart; http://www1.smart.com.ph/about/meet/corporate-profile) called on all mobile developers to create and pitch Web and/or mobile applications that could be the next big tech push for rice farming.

In celebration of National Rice Awareness Month, IRRI and Smart through its developer community program Smart Developer Network (Smart DevNet; http://smartdevnet.wordpress.com/2012/11/11/and-the-winners-of-the-first-ever...) staged the "BIGAS Hackathon", which was a developer event that aimed to churn out apps that can further enhance the impact of rice production technologies."

Best Research Data Collection App was won by team Love Team with their the IsWater app. It features automatic data gathering of a soil's water level using sensors and then notifies farmers/researchers a via mobile app. This team was developed by Arvin Orubia, Michelle Aldave, Drexie de Leon, and Cherryl Opon.

The Best Game App was won by team composed of Bryan Bibat and Alvin Edward Chan. They call it Araro (plow or plowing the rice fields) This text-based simulation game based and streamlined on RiceGrow can be found at http://araro.karaniwan.org.

The Best Farmer Info Technology App goes to Team Libra composed of Joan Antonette Bautista, Jason-Bourne Escolano Manzala, John Louis Perez, and Raymond Balingit. Binhi is a Rice Variety Picker app that aims to aid farmers in choosing the most suitable variety on factors like season, irrigation, type, etc.

 

The hackathon event was actually held at the IRRI library where they had to "rearrange" the area previously occupied as a library containing books and other literature.However, the organizers introduction, team presentations, and awarding ceremonies were held at the IRRI Museum and Learning Center auditorium.

App development or "hacking" started at 2 pm of November 10, 2012 until 2 pm the next day, November 11, 2012. However, the participants were requested to transfer to a hotel venue (Boy Scouts of the Philippines new 3-month old hotel located at the Jamboree road) from 1 am to 7 pm, and continued at the IRRI library from 7 am until 10 am.

Awarding at the IRRI Museum and Learning Center auditorium ended sometime at around 3 pm.Participants, guests, judges and organizers were then shuttled back in Makati.

Breaking My Diet with Around The World In Small Plates

 

Lifestyle Network launched a charity dinner event titled “Around the World in Small Plates” to benefit the “I Can Serve Foundation”. It was the first of its kind in the Philippines as a friend of mine, who also attended the event, experienced a similar but bigger event in Hawaii with the same concept "tasting delicacies from several different countries" (21 to be specific), but in Hawaii, they had 200 dishes!

Wow! and we thought we had more than what we can chew and swallow for the entire night. 21 dishes was already too much for us, we never got to finish all the dishes, eventhough if it was served in "small plates"