ANGELES CITY, Pampanga (Mar 2026) — Most institutional training programs put people in seminar rooms with slide decks. The University of the Philippines took a different approach: it sent its campus IT leads inside an actual working data center for three days.
From March 27, IT heads from UP campuses nationwide traveled to the newly inaugurated Converge Angeles Data Center in Pampanga for an immersion program covering data center operations, server infrastructure, cloud and AI technologies, cybersecurity, and sustainable tech practices. The facility, the Converge Group’s largest, opened on March 20 and carries a Tier III certification designed for continuous uptime even under infrastructure stress.
Participants toured the Security Operations Center, Data Command Center, UPS and Battery Room, Power House, and Satellite Earth Station, getting hands-on exposure to the systems that keep large-scale digital infrastructure running.
“Our people are inside a working data center, learning from the engineers, executives, and professionals who operate it every day,” said Prof. Peter Sy, Vice President for Digital Transformation of the UP System. “That is how we build real institutional capability, not through frameworks on paper, but through practice.”
The program is structured around the UP Data Center Staff Competency Framework, a nine-domain professional development standard released by the UP Office of the Vice President for Digital Transformation in November 2025. The three-day immersion directly addresses at least six of those nine domains, from governance and compliance to emergency response and business continuity.
Concrete outcomes from the training include completed role-based certifications, established refresher training cycles, skill audits, compliance reviews, and a documentation system for ongoing updates.
Senior Converge executives led the sessions alongside outside experts, with support from global technology partners H3C and Dell Philippines, organized under the Converge University program.
“Converge is committed to building digital capability not just within our company but across institutions that shape the country’s future,” said Converge CEO and Co-Founder Dennis Anthony Uy. “Working with UP allows us to contribute directly to the next generation of Filipino technology leaders.”
The collaboration falls under an MOU signed by UP and Converge on September 29, 2025, and advances two priorities under UP President Angelo Jimenez’s Strategic Plan 2023 to 2029: active and collaborative partnerships, and digital transformation.
