Recently I passed the Japanese Language Proficiency Test Level 2. Without going into the specifics of this very difficult exam, let me just say that I almost jumped up and hugged the next person beside me when I found out. But I was in Compostela Valley that time, and I didn’t want to create a spectacle. In short, possessing a Level 2 certification in Nihongo is not a small matter.

Not quite apart from my involvement in Davao’s IT industry, I have also been active in the local Japanese language education scene for some years now. I say ‘not quite apart’ because one of my self-appointed responsibilities within IT is to promote the technological skills of Davao to the Japanese market. But it’s been a lonely road for me. When asked by Jetro representatives recently about the number of Davao-based IT practitioners proficient in Japanese… well, I’m the only one.

But in fact, there are none. What Jetro wanted to know about were programmers, systems engineers, even web applications developers. I am in IT as a marketer, a facilitator.

Last night I was with my Japanese friends and fellow educators. We have been planning for sometime now to establish an association of Japanese language teachers here in Davao. My proposal now is to accomplish this with the purpose of training IT people in the language. It is not an easy language to study (especially if the student is not interested), but for those who make it, the rewards will be tremendous.

According to the Jetro representatives who came to Davao last week to promote the PhilNITS exams (more coverage on this in succeeding posts!), Japan has a huge shortage of IT engineers. That is the reason why they’re hiring from outside, not only from the Philippines, but also from Vietnam, Malaysia, etc. And these highly-skilled IT engineers are paid the same as their Japanese counterparts. That is, if they know Nihongo and especially if they’re passers of the IT engineers’ exams.

The good news is, much of the lingo in Japanese IT is based on where most of the software of the world come from, the United States. So whatever an IT student learns here will be pretty much applicable in Japan. But wait a minute, am I trying to promote the exodus of manpower?? Well, not really promote, but I’d rather see that these skilled workers who go abroad get decent jobs outside. On the flipside, those who do decide to stay here can be instrumental in the local outsourcing industry, which is steadily moving forward.

If we are able to reach a critical mass of Japanese-speaking (and -writing of course!) IT professionals here, it would be the answer to the IT industry’s dream: to penetrate the Japanese market. In fact, we wouldn’t have to do any penetrating: the market will come to us!

Take a look at where we were a decade ago — read the Philippine Internet History — and see how much we’ve accomplished. If we do get the attention of the Japanese IT industry, our accomplishments will have jumped even further than we’ve had in the last decade.