Google seminar at STI Academic Center

Yours truly with Dan Delima of Google Japan

When one talks about GOOGLE, the top of mind answer is always SEARCH ENGINE. But unknown to many, GOOGLE is beyond Search and is one of the best companies in the world because of their proactive stance in constantly improving the various products that they have. I for one witnessed the vast number of products that Google has to helps us connect, communicate and control.

Dan explaining GWT

To be able to capture a big chunk of Filipinos to use Google’s mail platform Gmail, Google Country Manager for the Philippines Aileen Apolo partnered with schools so that students today will be seeds that will eventually grow and make Gmail the most preferred email for us Filipinos. Yes, a rival email was first to make it big but there is a difference between the first one and the best one. Two years ago, the STI Education Services group became one of the partners of Google. STI students now have an STI Google mail that they can access through their school’s unique URL. These mails can also be upgraded to Google accounts and then you can start using Picasa, Blogger and other Google Products.

STI Faculty members listen intently

In an effort to give STI students added knowledge in programming, Aileen brought to the new STI Academic Center a Filipino software engineer working in Google Japan to give STI Students and faculty members added knowledge in the world of Google API’s. The guest, Dan Delima has been in Japan for five years and has worked for Google for one year already. He is one of the top engineers from Google Japan and even came went to the Ateneo to give the same talk to Ateneans. Imagine Google’s partners in the country, Ateneo, UP and STI.

Dan doing a demo of Google App Engine

The one thing nice about Dan’s presentation was that it only had six slides but lots of demonstrations. The more than 50 students who packed the classroom where Dan lectured were all eager to tryout what they have just learned. Dan started his talk with Google Web Toolkits and then talked a lot about Google application engines which is popularly known as Google App Engines. Eventually he dwelled towards different ways to be more efficient on the web and then ended his 2 hour talk with a glimpse of Google’s forthcoming baby Google Wave.

I was happy since a lot of students were interested and asked lots of questions. Faculty members also clarified some terms, procedures and applications and were all eager to see more demos and learn. Aileen assured my boss that in two months time she will be bringing in another guest to further boost the partnership between STI and Google. With Google on our side we can definitely say that the search is over!