USC STEM hosts STEMinar

image source: https://www.facebook.com/USCstem

The University of San Carlos’ Student Ecological Movement (STEM) hosted its STEMinar on July 25 at Gansewinkel Hall, USC – Downtown Campus as part of the week-long celebration of STEM’s advocacy, the Verdant Revolution.

With the theme “Unity Amidst Ecological Diversity,” the seminar aims to raise awareness and to increase student involvement in helping the environment through eco-business, eco-tourism and urban development.

In an informative talk by Engineer Jun Sanchez, he presented the Road Widening Project and roadmap study by the Metro Cebu Development and Coordinating Board, and cited the different infrastructure studies started by the Japan International Cooperation Agency since 1979.

From that year onwards, the studies remained to be ignored. According to Sanchez, the projects stopped their implementation because political leaders and decision makers at the time prioritized other projects. MCDCB, with the studies led by JICA, now hopes to revive 19 infrastructure projects through private sector participation.

The second lecture was addressed by EcoNVERGE’s Joris Claeys. His talk centered on “transforming society and the economy by innovating beyond GDP (Gross Domestic Product).” According to Claeys, capitalism is good but people have to “pay attention to how moneymaking affects the whole world.” He added that people should learn to go from “me” to “we” and replace growth with progress.

Claeys further emphasized in his talk the importance of understanding one’s capacities in order to go to a more collaborative and creative environment.

Enrique dela Rosa San Juan, Chief Executive Officer of Sustainable Energy and Enterprise Development for Communities or Seed4com, gave a talk about the Let’s Do It Philippines Movement. The campaign started in Estonia in 2008 with the aim of “rebelling against illegal solid waste” and later on became an international movement with 113 participating countries.

According to San Juan, their goal is to gather 5 million volunteers to do a one-day major clean up around the country on September 20, 2015 through an app called Waste Mapper. The organization hopes to increase awareness through the help of opinion leaders, actors, musicians and sportsmen.

Aside from the STEMinar, USC STEM will also hold events such as Bike for Life, ECOART and ECOachella to promote environmental awareness.