The 1st Philippine BPO Virtual Assistant Conference : Venturing Onwards and Seizing All Opportunities

Wazzup Pilipinas!

The very first Philippine BPO Virtual Assistant Conference was held last July 20 at the Informatics College located in Eastwood, Libis Quezon City. It was graced by several specialists in the BPO and Virtual Assistance industry as main speakers of the event. It is very rare that an elite group of speakers were assembled in one big event before.

The Philippine BPO and Virtual Assistant industry is rapidly growing in such a very fast pace that the demand for more skillful and highly trained online assistance practitioners has grown equally high, thus the conference was very relevant for many of the attendees who wants to become extra competitive.

ThePhilippine BPO Virtual Assistant industry is rapidly growing and we need more qualified and trained individuals who can meet this demand for people specializing in website development, software solutions , voice and non voice services, front and back end processes. - See more at: http://www.attendconferences.com/events/1st-philippine-bpo-virtual-assistant-conference/#sthash.wSuVjRaY.dpuf

ThePhilippine BPO Virtual Assistant industry is rapidly growing and we need more qualified and trained individuals who can meet this demand for people specializing in website development, software solutions , voice and non voice services, front and back end processes. - See more at: http://www.attendconferences.com/events/1st-philippine-bpo-virtual-assistant-conference/#sthash.wSuVjRaY.dpuf

assembled a speaker’s list that has not been put in one event before - See more at: http://www.attendconferences.com/events/1st-philippine-bpo-virtual-assistant-conference/#sthash.wSuVjRaY.dpuf

assembled a speaker’s list that has not been put in one event before - See more at: http://www.attendconferences.com/events/1st-philippine-bpo-virtual-assistant-conference/#sthash.wSuVjRaY.dpuf

assembled a speaker’s list that has not been put in one event before - See more at: http://www.attendconferences.com/events/1st-philippine-bpo-virtual-assistant-conference/#sthash.wSuVjRaY.dpuf

The list of speakers included Leo Riingen - President of Informatics College, Alfredo Hernandez - Director of BPAP.org, Paul Rivera - CEO of Kalibrr.com, Bryce Maddock - CEO of TaskUs.com, Benj Arriola - SEO Director of Internet Marketing, Inc., Jonas Diego - Creative Director and founder of JonasDiego.com, Grace Dimaranan - Board Director of the Animation Council of the Philippines, Jojy Azurin - Country Manager of Freelancer.com, Ken Sproule - CEO of Ko-Kard.com, and Jay Pasana - Founder of the Philippine Virtual Assistant Network. Leading the event and acting as host of the day was Arriane Symmes, President of GlobalTechSource.net.

 

The very humble yet highly successful Leo Riingen of Informatics gave a welcome remark as he introduced everyone to Informatics. Informatics provides one of the best education and training in I.T. and business and offers local and international degree, plus diploma programs, short IT courses, and corporate training. From its very first branch in SM Megamall, Informatics has grown into more than 30 branches nationwide making it one of the biggest schools in the country.

http://www.informatics.edu.ph

Next to share his expertise was the very vibrant Alfredo Hernandez from the Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPAP), or now known as the Information Technology and Business Processing Association of the Philippines (IBPAP), has shared with us some of the more popular trends in the Philippine IT-BPO industry. IBPAP is the enabling association for the information technology and business process management (IT-BPM) industry in the Philippines. IBPAP serves as the one-stop information and advocacy gateway for the industry. IBPAP assists investors in setting up operations easily and quickly in the Philippines thus their inputs during the conference were very valuable to the attendees.

http://www.bpap.org/

 

Bryce Maddock, with his well-modulated voice and striking appeal, impressed the audience not only by his good looks(since majority of the attendees were ladies) but also by how he praised Filipinos for being great online partners making the Philippines the number 1 destination in the world for outsourcing business process. TaskUs.com is enjoying the patronage of many of the biggest and most exciting companies in the world entrusting TaskUs with their daily business processes to free them to focus on true innovation.

http://www.taskus.com/

The dashing Paul Rivera of Kalibrr presented on how to use BPO as a platform for a long term professional career. Kalibrr offers online training to would help you get a call center job fast and easy. The world is coming to the Philippines and Kalibrr wants to make sure we are prepared to seize those opportunities. Kalibrr is transforming the talent economy and hopes to contribute greatly to sustainable economic growth in the country, and eventually, beyond. Is everyone going to be studying online now and is Kalibrr going to put schools out of business?

http://www.kalibrr.com

 

Who can forget the Vin Diesel look-alike Ken Sproule of Ko-Kard who delivered a presentation that grabbed the attention of all....and oh, did I mention he wore a "Barong" in the presentation? He looked more Filipino among the other speakers present at that time. Seriously, since most of us wants to get paid conveniently, Ko-Kard was a well embraced topic of the day. The company is a refreshing alternative to Paypal.  Ko-Kard has revolutionized the use of a reloadable MasterCard ATM Card as an easy and safe method to receive money sent from anyone anywhere in the world. Ko-kard is not a credit card but a re-loadable, Prepaid Access ATM debit card which can have funds repeatedly loaded onto the Kard through the ko-kard website.

https://www.ko-kard.com/

 

Labelled during the conference as the Queen of Animation, Grace Dimaranan of the Animation Council of the Philippines once again confirmed how talented and creative the Filipino animators are. Since I am a fan of all animation even as a child until now, I made special attention on her talk. The Animation Council of the Philippines is a non-stock and non-profit organization whose member companies specialize mainly in, but not limited to, either 2D or 3D animation. It is an organization recognized and supported by the Philippine government whose aim is to promote the Animation Industry globally with the intention of creating an identity for the Philippines to be considered amongst the preferred countries that service the animation industry. She has declared that we are already providing animation works for many foreign companies and has continuously been in a great working relationship with many of them.

http://www.animationcouncil.org/

 

Making the afternoon more interesting was Jojy Azurin of Freelancer.com, one of the online companies similar to Odesk.com and Elance.com, shared with us how to market ourselves globally as a virtual assistant. Freelancer.com boasts of being the world's largest outsourcing marketplace, empowering entrepreneurs & small businesses worldwide.Through their website, employers can hire freelancers to do work in areas such as software, writing, data entry and design right through to engineering and the sciences, sales and marketing, and accounting and legal services. Again, we heard more praises for the Filipino online worker for excelling in the online world. What stuck in mind was when he mentioned that we should always keep a family-friendly schedule to value quality time with our families regardless of our hectic schedule.

http://www.freelancer.com/

 

I guess all animation fans are also comic book fans. So it was a real treat to hear from a comic book artists at the same day. Jonas Diego of JonasDiego.com presented to the attendees how to succeed as a global graphic designer. Jonas is well known as a comic book artist and writer that has published many popular independent comic books. He also produces comic books for various companies and advertising agencies. Aside from his pursuits in the field of comic books, graphic design, and mobile content, Jonas also manages the Philippine operations of Interactive Art Services (IAS), Inc. as its studio director. He is also a problogger handling writing chores for The Comic Blurb, a comics-themed blog that is a member of the first Filipino blogging network, Bayanihan Blogs.

http://www.jonasdiego.com/

 

The event was too good to let it pass so Benj Arriola, an SEO expert from Internet Marketing Inc., an Internet Marketing agency based abroad, decided to send in a video presentation of him discussing the SEO challenges faced in a BPO environment. We were all amazed on the effort he put into the making of the video complete with transitions and multimedia effects incorporated in the presentation. Internet Marketing Inc. is one of the fastest growing full service Internet marketing agencies with offices in San Diego, Las Vegas, and Miami. They specialize in providing results driven integrated online marketing solutions for medium and large businesses across the globe.

http://www.internetmarketinginc.com/

Incidentally, Benj has already created an article about the event. The link below also contains the video presented during the conference.

http://www.seoreligion.com/1st-philippines-bpo-business-process-outsourcing-va-virtual-assistant-conference.html

Lastly but definitely not the least, Jay Pasana from the Philippine Virtual Assistant Network shared how to setup a virtual assistant business from home. There was also some testimonials from a few Virtual Assistants that are members of the group. It was interesting to hear from these individuals as they elaborated on their experience, both failures and triumphs, and how their career leveled up since they started their online career as a Virtual Assistant.

http://www.virtualassistant.ph/

Thank you very much to Arianne Symmes, President of GlobalTechSource.net and proud organizer of the 1st Philippine BPO Virtual assistant Conference for a very energetic hosting and for also sharing with us her inputs that will surely help us in our online work. GlobalTechSource.net creates digital media productions for educational, marketing and corporate entities. Arianne is an avid digital media publisher and works with various companies involved with startups, elearning on line publishing, digital media video and audio productions.

http://globaltechsource.net/


Below are the Virtual Assistants, rather "Virtual Partners" who shared their testimonials with the attendees:

Overall, the 1st Philippine BPO Virtual Assistant Conference was definitely a huge success as it was able to deliver as promised very helpful information to help our current and incoming virtual partners to excel in their chosen field. In fact, there were quite a number of attendees that came from out of town, and even some from out of the country just to be able to attend the conference.

As what a speaker has said during the conference, the world is coming to the Philippines and we need to equip ourselves with the right tools to become competitive, if not "numero uno", and the preferred choice of all potential online employers.

From one of the individuals that made some testimonials, here is what she has to say:

"Today I got to share the story of my Freelancing to Entrepreneurship journey to a group of Virtual Assistant Rockstars. Dear Philippine Virtual Assistant Network, THE BEST KAYO! Thank you! Maniwala kayo, pwede umasenso ng ganda lang ang puhunan!" - Kei San Pablo

I simply can't wait to apply what I have learned at the conference, and I'm sure the otehrs feel the same. So until the 2nd Philippine BPO and Virtual Assistant Conference, here's wishing us more projects and opportunities and see you all online!