Future Culture: 2008: Great Year For MFS

Hi Manila Futurists!

What a swift year of 2008! It wheezed and swoooshed ... as if in minutes... and then it's gone ...

But quite a full-packed year of seminar-events, discoveries of the "inner futurist" in all of us ... and discovering the wonder of science and technology ...

Last year was a full year for MFS : two seminar-events last January when we "invaded" all-girls school St. Scholastica's College with our "The Future of Medicine" talk by Harvard lady Dr. Divina Gonzalez...

Later in the same month of January , we had our first foray into the wonderful world of Mapua Makati --- discovering our favorite venue AVR-1, and meeting the soon-to-be Manila Futurists Erwin Donovan Ong ( Mapua Prof) , Gabby Manicio (Mapua Webmasters Guild President ) ... and the sweet tech guys of AVR-1 who were "receipients" of my mini-gifts like McChicken meals

, simply because they were always so sweet in helping me out with technical stuff during the programs of MFS at Mapua Makati.

By February, we were at University of Batangas ( upon the suggestion of Dr. Divine), bringing the same seminar talk to her friends at UB, most especially UB President and former Justice Secretary Hernani Perez. I even interrupted their whispering chummy talk during the program ( while they were whispering about Hernani's alleged "anomalies" with GMA), when I introduced Sec. Hernani to do his intro speech --- clueless that they were in the middle of their "whispering hope" gossip about this and that ...

March 2008 was a memorable year when we had "close encounters " (!) with the La Sallista "sweet" girls , who took charge of the program and played "Follow Me" by Uncle Cracker over and over again until our ears were about to bleed ... so we just packed up and left ... I received apologies from the mini-group ( start-up university group from DLSU ) much later . I wonder if they ever got past the "probationary period" of being approved as a legit group ?!?!? Hmmmm...

Anyways from DLSU we got Tori Avalon as joining the group ( we'd love to hear from you, man) , who sometimes forward our posts to his DLSU org ....

April 2008 proved to be our best month, what with DLSU Dean Caslon Chua leading the talk on artificial intelligence ( he's still in Australia, I heard) , really sweet and swell guy ( admittedly and unabashedly my favorite ! ) who also had the best and most-loved talk.

Questions, questions, and more outpouring questions overflowed on the floor, as the non-stop Mapua Makati students got all fired up and excited, and kept on hurling queries for him during the talk, which he gamely all answered. Gabby M, Erwin Donovan Ong, and Kim Gargar ( Prof of Mapua Manila and Makati, also of AGHAM ) were in the audience , also later becoming part of the MFS group ...

May 2008 was kinda ho-hum event at Mapua Makati ( maybe we pushed our luck too far, Kim?) when only a few showed up at our event ... The event was probably not too well-promoted and advertised, but fired up by our energetic speaker from UP ITTC REx Rodriguez waking them up with his talk "THe Future of Computers and IT"

during the event . Rex later becomes one of our members, too.

And , of course , who could forget to mention : well-respected in IT circles and in the UP IT arena --- UP ITTC PResident Dr. Jimmy Caro ( now also one of our members) . Dr. Caro is also head of Computer Science Department of UP, among other achievements.

By June 2008 , we had a blast at FEU, gaining new friends via FEU AVP Cecille Anido ( the lady who was founder of Philippine Society of IT Educators ) , and our wonderful speaker Dr. Raffy Saldana from ATeneo de Manila University with his talk " The High-Tech Future of Business and Computing In The 21st Century". Dr. RAffy is also from AGHAM... AGHAM lady Natalie later rushes in to attend the event as part of the audience and giving support to Dr. Raffy.

July 2008: the Manila Futurists had an initial entry into Ateneo University, the "Blue Eagle Country" -- where we had a nice experience with the young Ateneo kids , business majors, who gamely helped us in organizing the event, packing the auditorium with their organization members, and inviting some friends to come over. From the audience we also got members --- especially this good-looking IT guy -- really sorry ( my mind has your name but has slipped my memory at the moment --- apologies! ) ... Will remember in a few minutes ...

August 2008 brought us to Manila via the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila... where we again discussed "THe Future of Health and Medicine In The 21st Century" , with our Harvard guy Dr. Paul Reganit leading the talk, also one of our good speakers for the whole year. Inspite of his "lost" (?) powerpoint presentation , we were able to pull it off which his good rapport with the audience ...

And from PLM we got a new member , sweet lady PLM Science Student Rajean ... I wonder if Noli "Brainiac" , PLM Science student org president, has also become a member of MFS ??

By September we were at Mapua Manila --- the unforgettable (!) event ... MFS member and Mapua Prof Erwin Ong is there again ( seemingly a permanent fixture of our MFS talks ... but I didn't see you last Nov at Mapua Makati , Erwin

)

Our topic at Mapua Manila was "Humanity Year 3000: Living in the Brave New Digital World" ... with main man and celebrity blogger Abe Olandres ( later becoming our MFS member) leading the talk. Oh yes, we got raised eyebrows in Mapua Manila ... but ... well... we "crawled" out of the university peacefully

, "unscratched", and in one piece. Right, Abe??

October and November we were back at our favorite venue, Mapua Makati's AVR 1 . October was for the Nursing students of the university, with our anti-aging technology talk led by Dr. Florencio Lucero of Beverly Hills 6750, cosmetologist and stem cell therapist of the stars , yet gamely shared his precious time with the Manila Futurists and the Mapua Nursing audience... Mapua Nursing Dean Grace Valderrama was surprised that our speaker was apparently her long-lost friend from way back ... so it became a mini-reunion for the two old friends . And a full-to-the-brim event!

November at Mapua Makati was with Gabby M's Webmasters' Guild... Gabby , cannot thank you enough for all your efforts in this event ... Much thanks to you and your friends ... While we haven't really packed it in full , we had a cozy talk and we're happy that we pulled it off. If ever we come back in Mapua Makati, you guys may have graduated, but I'm pretty sure Mapua Makati has undoubtedly left a nice imprint on my mind as per the guys' sweet and down-to-earth attitude back there ...

And this December ... was busy with work but managed to peep in our Yahoo!Group from time to time ...

Biggest thanks to our speakers who led our talks, and most especially biggest biggest thanks to our sponsors , Korns Associates --- led by Las Vegas futurists Michael Korns and Gilda Cabral ...

Big thanks to the lovable (!) Mike Du, who never fails to encourage everyone in this group, Wendell Cano, Andrew Moris, Brain Project, Beth ( BBetchaByGollyWow) , among others, our friends from UP ITTC ( Joeboy most especially) , friends from AGHAM, Mapua Makati, the different universities where we had our talks ... WOW... this might take me until year 2010 until I stop myself ...)

Mike Du! You're the man, Man! Keep hurling in those posts and keep us "enlightened!"

And before the year ended... we had Las Vegas futurist Eric joining MFS , also friend of our MFS founders -- LV futurists Mike Korns and Ms. Gilda ...

Here's wishing everyone our Best Year Ever for year 2009!

Cheers!

Lei
Future Culture

(PS. Apologies to names which slipped my mind!

... Thanks to you too )