Making his MARK: A Visually Impaired Makes Good as a Transcriber

article by: Maan Robin

When was the last time you heard a friend or a colleague say the line “Patience is a virtue” and you just laughed it off? I took this statement lightly as well until I met Mark Homez. Mark is a visually impaired transcriber working for ZipIT Solutions Inc whom I met a few weeks back. Both ZipIT and MTC Academy are housed in same location along E. Quirino Avenue in Davao City. Mark is one individual I have a lot of respect and admiration for. I had the chance of chatting up his mom whose love and dedication for Mark and his dreams is clearly a top agenda for her.

Born with premature eyes, he grew up seeing only blurred images until a bike accident at a young age which caused him to lose his eyesight totally. Despite this tragedy, Mark finished his high school education at the School for the Blind and then went through a course in computer literacy with the aid of a soft ware called Job Access with Speech (JAWS) at the Resources for the Blind Inc.

Joining the mainstream of society who seeks stability, Mark’s condition posed a set of limitations which seemed impossible to hurdle until he met Honey Baula, a life coach who changed his outlook on the many opportunities for the visually impaired. With the information Honey shared, Mark persuaded his parents to allow him to pursue a transcription career. Mark asserts that “since a 4-year college course for me could be difficult, I needed to find alternative learning/education that fits my condition.” Mrs. Homez supported his son’s plan having heard about MTC Academy’s Transcription Training for the Visually Impaired (VI). Mrs. Homez continues by saying, “We agreed to enroll Mark in transcription training and supported him by looking over his needs such as the carpool to provide transport to and from the house and school.” Mrs. Homez also made it a point to meet with MTC’s staff and faculty to ascertain their level of readiness to provide for Marks unique learning requirements.

According to Mr. Joebert Sarong, one of his mentors, “Mark was very aloof in the first few weeks. He was very pessimistic that he would not finish the course.” Gradually, Mark’s outlook changed as he progressed and noticeably became more sociable and positive. Over time, his classmates and mentors discovered a new facet of Mark’s personality emerging - a smart, witty and humorous fellow who certainly could make his classmates laugh. “Mark is very diligent in his training; he would spend time studying his e-books and would top the exams. He really is one of my best students,” added Mr. Sarong.

“I find it unbelievable that my son is now earning his own salary. The amount doesn’t really matter because I could really feel that he is enjoying his work and have gained more self-esteem, confidence and social skills as well”, adds Mrs. Homez.

On August 27, 2010, I was honored to witness Mark’s graduation at MTC Academy. His advice to peers and students –“Patience, patience, patience…” was all that he emphasized. He claims that without it, he wouldn’t be the person that he has become today: Optimistic, confident and facing each day with enthusiasm.

Patience …that one word meant a lot to me – me with all my faculties intact tended to take for granted the gifts I am blessed with. MARK has indeed made his mark by inspiring me to be thankful for what I have and to make full use of these gifts.

MTC Introduces New, More Affordable Transcription Programs in 2009

Many large business owners today have a global view of the outsourced transcription industry and generally do not pose objections to getting the job done outside of country borders as long as it gets done on time and work is consistently accurate.

The good news is, the increasing demand for transcribers is now not just limited to medical but also now include legal and general/business transcriptions. The demand for qualified transcribers has continued its upswing trend and Davao City operators have continued to experience to date some degree of shortage of qualified and trained transcribers in the areas of medical and legal transcriptions.

MTC Academy’s desire to provide more value has given rise to a curriculum innovation that now includes program tracks in building transcription skills at the intermediate and advanced levels for General, Legal and Medical transcriptions. The tracks are so designed to enable a beginner-student to primarily build basic skill sets such a keyboarding, computer operations, listening for accents, English proficiency and familiarity with transcription technology at the BASIC or pre-requisite level.

For flexibility, the MTC curriculum allows students (college graduates or undergraduates from any course background) possessing basic skills to get an exemption from some pre-requisite courses and move forward to enrolling in any of the 3 main transcription tracks General Transcriptions 1(GT1), Legal Transcriptions 1 (LT1) or Medical Transcriptions 1 (MT1). To further season the transcription-trainee, MTC encourages its students to complete the advance programs of GT2, LT2 or MT2.

Using the revolving curriculum for most of its programs allowing classes to start every month, MTC Academy has also restructured its program costs thus enhancing the value for money for all of its courses. This innovation has brought about a reduction in tuition fees ranging from 30-50% for all of its 2009 programs.

Supplying more than 50% of Davao City’s manpower requirement to its corporate partners, MTC Academy located at E.Quirino Avenue corner Gen Luna St. (082-2226822) continues to fill up vacancies for transcribers by providing job placement assistance for its transcription graduates to companies here in Davao and as far as Manila and Cebu.

Visually Impaired Finds Hope in Outsourcing Career

Losing one’s sight causes people to despair and lose hope for a bright future. When it happens slowly as in the case of those afflicted with a genetic eye disorder called Retinitis Pigmentosa, the situations becomes terrible as most people fear the loss of independence that results from losing one’s vision.

Such is the case of Ramon (name withheld for privacy) who had been suffering progressively from a condition called tunnel vision. While others go completely blind, in some cases as early as childhood, for others, the eventual loss of sight happens much later.Ramon was diagnosed with this eye disorder while attending his 4^th year of college education in a local university. Fresh out of college and determined to arm himself with a skill that will enable him to be a productive individual despite his impairment, Ramon decided to enter a medical transcription program upon the recommendation of the Resources for the Blind Inc. (RBI). RBI in cooperation with MTC Academy has a special program that teaches the visually impaired to acquire the competencies of medical or business transcription through a technology called JAWS (Job Access with Speech).

Never wavering in his belief that he can be somebody, Ramon persevered in his transcription education and finally graduated last September 2008.Barely 3 weeks from graduation, he landed a job with a Davao-based transcription company. Ramon at 23 years old is a shining example of how to win despite the odds.

With the ever increasing demand for outsourcing services such as transcription, hope springs for the visually impaired. Davao’s ICT champions continue to advocate training for business process outsourcing skills and equal employment opportunities for the disabled.

Davao: The "Next Big One"

This is the best news so far. And to quote, "Outside of Metro Manila and Metro Cebu, Davao will become "the biggest location for BPOs," says David Leechiu.

Click here for David Leechiu profile.

Click here for the whole BPAP Breakthrough Newsletter.

BPO industry needs more ICT graduates

DAVAO CITY, Philippines - With the Philippine Information and Communications Technology (ICT) industry growing by 30 to 35 percent annually and a projection of 1 million jobs generated by 2010, key players in the Philippine business process outsourcing (BPO) industry and academe are pushing for a comprehensive and sustainable training program that will develop Mindanao's human resources on information, communication technology (ICT.

"We need to let the public know the positive economic impact the BPO sector has already gained, and the untapped opportunities that the ICT industry has to offer particularly in creating more jobs and ICT-related businesses," said Wit Holganza, president of the ICT Davao, Inc. during the first ever BPO Human Resource and Recruitment Forum held last September 29.

She said the forum, which gathered BPO experts and HR practitioners from local schools and training institutions, is a good start to prepare the human resource pool to acquire skills that will serve the requirements of the BPO industry players.

The supply of qualified ICT-skilled workers is an increasing concern, as the industry needs more ICT graduates with the ICT industry poised for upbeat growth in the next years.

Ditas Formoso, head of the Technical Committee on Government Academe Industry Linkage (TC-Gail) said that the talent pool is growing at a rate of only 10 percent while the industry grows 30-35 percent annually.

In her presentation, she explained that faculty development, industry immersion for students, appropriate school infrastructure and industry-based curricula are factors that make up a talent pool required by the industry.

The TC-Gail will embark on advocacy and awareness programs to gain industry, academe and local
government support for the faculty immersion programs they will be pilot testing.

She also encouraged academic institutions to participate, as this will benefit both graduates and faculty.

Jamea Garcia, Talent Development Director of the Business Processing Association of the
Philippines (BPAP) said in her presentation that the supply of talent would determine the level of growth the industry will experience.

She said that a comprehensive assessment and training program must be developed to help improve suitability of talent for the industry.

In a recent article, she said investing in training of human resources is a challenge for stakeholders "in order to supply the quality of talent which will also propel improvements in the industry."

She said aside from generating 1 million jobs by 2010, it is also projected to generate 1.2 to 1.3 million indirect jobs.

The forum was organized by the ICT Davao, an umbrella organization of different ICT industry associations. The group is planning to develop a databank, which will determine Davao's human resources pool and its capacity to respond to the needs of prospective locators.

The three-day forum also matched teachers and guidance counselors of schools with HR and recruitment staff of BPO companies on a two-day job fair to allow schools firsthand experience in human resource and recruitment processes which can become a benchmark for schools in improving their curriculum particularly in English proficiency and other ICT-related skills.

A career employment track was organized to focus on career opportunities in the different BPO fields, which include the contact center, medical transcription, and graphics and animation.

On the other hand, the technopreneurship track oriented the participants of opportunities in engaging in ICT start-up businesses.

The Davao Business Plan Competition was also launched during the forum to encourage young ICT entrepreneurs to submit business start-up proposals. - Sun Star

Cross the River and Learn How to Swim

As the famous song from the known band AMERICA says "Don't cross the river if you can't swim the tide". I am to believe that this notion is always the best thing to do in every situation where you are stuck to the point of having hesitations in doing something because you don't know how to get around it.

When I started working in MTC Academy Davao, I had this feeling of anxiety since I know I will be asked to do things which I was not exposed to in the past. Considering that my experiences in the past are mostly in the hardware implementations and setups, still I pursued and faced it. I only had little idea on how to setup a medical transcription training center, most especially a medical transcription production facility.

When I did the network hardware setup of the school, I did not have that much difficulty in doing it since most of the implementations on the hardware area I am quite familiar and also I was provided with training from the central office. The only thing that is challenging is the implementation of the student's learning systems which require tremendous configurations. It took me more than a month to familiarize myself to that system and make it run stable. I just kept on experimenting, testing, researching and asking other IT people from other branches. Unlike in the setup of the production facility which is more challenging to do and must be in compliance to a law, had completely I am way far from the beginning of it. The most gruesome thing is I had to do it alone.

The setup of the production facility took me sometime to finish and make it running since it's a very complicated thing to setup for me because I did not have prior idea on how to do it. One important thing that drives me in order to successfully complete the setup of the facility is my instinct. What I did was I just kept on reading related articles, researching on the internet, ITs asking other IT experts opinions, and kept on testing by trial and error. Finally I was able to make it run in a standardized way that is compliant to the binding law. The internet is a vast collection of knowledge where you can gain ideas in making things done. One important thing that drives me in order to successfully complete the setup of the facility is my instinct.

Jonathan O. Lobo

IT Assistant