Connected Women was recently invited to TESDA’s National Tech-Voc Day Celebration at the Senate of the Philippines last Aug. 22, 2023.

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Tech-Voc Day is a showcase of different industry opportunities and demonstrations of skills that contribute to providing different career opportunities to Filipinos.

Graduates of the TESDA’s Tech-voc programs shared how it helped them in getting into jobs and getting on board with the rapidly changing times.

Present at the event were Senator Joel Villanueva, Senator Win Gatchalian, TESDA Director General Suharto Mangudadatu, UK Ambassador to the Philippines Laure Beaufils, Connected Women CEO Agnes Gervacio, and Connected Women co-founder Ruth Yu-Owen.

In his opening remarks, TESDA Director General Suharto Mangudadatu said that, “We at TESDA ensure that the skilled training we provide shall continue to produce resources with relevant future-proof skills and are ready to embrace new challenges and emerging opportunities.”

The Elevate AIDA training program is a good start to enter the emerging industry of Artificial Intelligence. The technology industry is continuously developing and work opportunities in this field are evolving as well.

During his speech, Senator Joel Villanueva said, “If we’re not ready for the changes happening in our region, in this world, in the industry around us, we will be left behind.”

Connected Women is in the business of giving opportunities to sectors of society that are often left behind. “Sino ba ang Connected Women? We are giving opportunities for women to work from home especially from underprivileged communities and for mothers who have no jobs we bring that opportunity home for women,” said Connected Women co-founder Ruth Yu-Owen.

The tech industry may be intimidating to women at first, but being an Elevate AIDA graduate changed this perception. I am proud to say that I am now a contributor to the development of advancing technology. The training paved the way for me to get hired for a specialized role in Connected Women as a trainer, giving me the opportunity to share my knowledge and train more women who can become data annotators.

Senator Joel Villanueva verbalized their continuous effort to train and give jobs to more people as he said, “How can we facilitate training programs initiated by the industry so that at the end of the day you will have graduates needed by the industry. They would land jobs easily.”

Industry training programs such as the Elevate AIDA training program are a way to get equipped with necessary skills to get hired for Data Annotation jobs with the Data Services that Connected Women offers.

He continued, “The dream of this representation is to come up with a supermarket of competencies. Students will just go to education institutions and just shop… until such a time that you are developed, you are skilled, what you have is what the industry needs.”

Learning does not stop after graduating from the Elevate AIDA program, as there are upskilling sessions offered for free that increase the skills and confidence of the graduates to get into work-from-home opportunities.

At the end of his speech, Senator Joel Villanueva thanked Connected Women in relation to fulfilling the dream of having various training program options to choose from. He said, “Natutuwa nga po ako nandito ang Connected Women at training regulation na ngayon ang kanilang ginagawa. Mabuhay po kayo. Maraming salamat muli sa TESDA.”