Message of the President at the UP Knowledge Festival

From 17 to 19 April 2016, a landmark event is taking place in the history of the University of the Philippines—a grand gathering of the University’s leading scientists, artists, and researchers under one roof, expressly for the purpose of forging stronger collaboration between disciplines and seeking innovative solutions to our country’s needs and problems.

This event is the UP Knowledge Festival, devoted to the theme, Utak at Puso para sa Bayan (Minds and Hearts for the Nation), and it will showcase the outputs of UP’s top knowledge creators in the areas of food production, health, climate change, energy, technology, education, and the arts.

We are spearheading this effort in the belief that human and knowledge capital is our strongest and most valuable resource, and that its development is key to achieving national development and sustaining inclusive growth. We need to provide the Filipino genius with the motivation and the means to contribute in uplifting our people’s lives. Encouraging partnerships across disciplines can speed up that process.

Research & Development and Creative Work are crucial to building the knowledge economy. UP, as the national university, is in a unique position to mobilize experts from various sectors—Science & Technology, Arts & Humanities—to think and to work together toward key national objectives like better quality employment and poverty reduction. In this way, UP is serving as an academic hub around which government, industry, and civil society can converge as partners in a common cause.

The UP Knowledge Festival displays the best of what the University’s researchers have produced, and provide a forum for disseminating and putting to productive use our scientific and research breakthroughs. Thus, we hope to offer our knowledge—our minds and hearts—for the service of our people, and also put the Philippines in step with its dynamic ASEAN neighbors.

Let me therefore congratulate the organizers of this Knowledge Festival, and I look forward to sharing its rewards with the rest of the Filipino people.

Padayon, UP!