LAB.PH, the Philippines’ pioneering Smart City Management Firm and LGUSuite, Inc., a data technology solutions provider that has serviced over 50 local government units (LGUs) across the country with their robust data management platform, inked last week a partnership to power communities across the nation with powerful data analytics.
This working partnership will generate community balance sheets by collecting and analyzing data from all households and industries from municipalities and barangays in each area through the Community OS platform, an economic development management system that models local economies in the Philippines. This system will coordinate and monitor the community’s supply chain and production/consumption patterns, as well as the elements and players that make up their local economic ecosystems.
The goal is to leverage this framework in order to increase community wealth and attract investments into these areas, enable more businesses to enter, and in effect create sustainable economic growth within the region.
“As the technology consulting arm of the Roxas-Kalaw Foundation, LAB.PH is delighted to announce its co-development partnership with LGUSuite,” said Russ Malangen, chief strategist of LAB.PH.
“Community OS was developed by Dr. Sixto K. Roxas as a means to enable communities and local governments to capture relevant data in order to reveal and share business opportunities with fund managers and entrepreneurs while simultaneously building community wealth,” he said. “Combined with the technology capability of our partners, we are confident that we can scale this framework to various districts in the Philippines and systematically repair our economy, one community at a time.”
Through Community OS, LGU’s will get a simulated snapshot of their communities, identifying the data and opportunities of community members, LGUs, logistics providers, marketplace participants, enterprises, entrepreneurs, rural banks, national banks, NGOs, financial institutions, and fund managers — to inform investment decisions, assemble business portfolios, develop enterprises, and more.
The platform addresses friction of data access, gathering and analysis to give local communities, government units, and financial institutions access to the tools needed to monitor sustainable portfolios.
In short, the platform makes communities bankable.
In 2019, LAB.PH became a member of the Hong Kong-based Emerging Future Cities Network lead by the Good City Foundation which brings together key stakeholders from Asia to collaborate on relevant projects for national development in their respective countries. LAB.PH believes that this group is crucial, as it is a powerful medium to spark relevant discussions and concrete collaboration points between its members. The network serves as a bridge that connects projects and technologies that drive product demonstration and diversifies its portfolio partners’ ability to integrate with the framework.
Later this year, LAB.PH plans to launch its own consortium comprised of foundations, technology vendors, IT infrastructure providers, traditional enterprises, financial institutions, incubators and accelerators, government agencies, local government units, and the academe. The consortium serves as a basis for LAB.PH to facilitate the entry of various enterprises into markets as derived by the economic data being captured, with LGUSuite being the newest addition to its list of renowned partners across the globe.
“The collaboration of LGUSuite, LAB.PH and the entire whole Smart City Consortium will leverage the competencies and expertise of each other,” Malangen said. “LGUSuite’s primary function for the consortium is to provide the technology platform for data collection, validation, storage, processing and analytics. Data is the fuel for Smart Cities. LGUSuite is experienced and well capacitated to mine and refine the needed data. We are very glad to be part of the consortium and participate in true nation building.”
