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Philippines News Agency

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The Philippines News Agency

The Philippines News Agency (PNA) is a web-based newswire service of the Philippine government. The PNA Headquarters are housed at the 2nd floor of the PIA building along Visayas Avenue, Quezon City. PNA's website address is http://www.pna.gov.ph

It has been 35 years since PNA was launched in an era when newswire operations relied mainly on teletype machines and typewriters. PNA has steadily paced the highly competitive and changing arena of Philippine journalism; it is now slowly but surely coming to par with the challenges posed by the globalization of media communications. This has deeply shaped modern journalism and the news media organizations that have been instrumental in creating the very conditions that made globalization a reality.

PNA has evolved today as an Internet-based news service agency that caters to the global demand for news and information to its subscribers, readers and a host of other clients. PNA's mission is spelled out clearly: to provide the government, the Presidency, the public, as well as its media and non-media clients, both local and foreign based, sober, factual, impartial and objective news and information. PNA provides news 24/7, including photos of major events, feature stories, sports news and events, local and global opinions, general information, as well as global news and feature stories. PNA employs about a hundred journalists and stringers across the country, with several foreign-based correspondents.

PNA beat reporters and stringers are deployed practically in every government office and agency, including the main offices and camps of police and security forces, to provide news 24/7 for local, regional and global subscribers and readers. PNA likewise maintains active news exchanges with news agencies of ASEAN member-countries and the Organization of Asia-Pacific News Agencies (OANA).

 PHILIPPINES NEWS AGENCY
pna.gov.ph
tel. no. 352-43-34
Latest Press Release
President Benigno S. Aquino III shares the stage with the students from the Center for Excellence (CENTEX) Elementary School for a group photo souvenir during the ceremonial signing of Republic Act No. 10533 or the Enhanced Basic Education Act of 2013 at the Rizal Ceremonial Hall of the Malacañan Palace on Wednesday (May 15). (PNA)

President Benigno S. Aquino III shares the stage with the students from the Center for Excellence (CENTEX) Elementary School for a group photo souvenir during the ceremonial signing of Republic Act No. 10533 or the Enhanced Basic Education Act of 2013 at the Rizal Ceremonial Hall of the Malacañan Palace on Wednesday (May 15). (PNA)

 IBM’s Blue Gene to enable improved weather prediction

MANILA, (PNA) -- The Department of Science and Technology (DOST), the University of the Philippines (UP) and IBM announced Thursday that the world-renowned IBM Blue Gene supercomputer has been chosen to support the Philippine government’s priority R&D projects focused on reducing poverty, improving government processes and tools and enabling smarter weather management, as based on the National Economic Development Authority’s Medium Term Development Plan.

A priority initiative around weather prediction will be the pilot project to use the IBM Blue Gene supercomputer as its platform.

A milestone among government-private-academe endeavors, the supercomputer soon to arrive in the country will provide high performance computing capabilities to help develop practical solutions to address the country’s basic problems.

The IBM Blue Gene supercomputer is set to be the platform for select R&D projects that are aligned with the country’s strategic growth initiative to advance poverty alleviation; transparency in the government; rapid, inclusive and sustained economic growth; peace and order; and environment and climate change mitigation.

“This is a direct result from the agreement between the DOST and IBM in May 2012, to jointly build a Philippine Systems and Technology R&D Lab to help accelerate national economic growth,” said Mariels Almeda Winhoffer, President and Country General Manager, IBM Philippines. “It is IBM’s response to President Aquino’s call for help to support research and development projects to enable transformation and progress in the country. The IBM Blue Gene supercomputer is our concrete contribution to advance R&D initiatives in the country.”

A priority R&D project, the DOST and IBM will collaborate on how the supercomputer can complement DOST’s Nationwide Operational Assessment of Hazards or Project NOAH, the government’s flagship program and integrated information system for disaster mitigation and climate change. The IBM supercomputer will enable local scientists to process and gain insights from the massive data collected, to produce faster, more accurate forecasts and improve localized weather prediction for the country. Prone to natural disasters, the country will benefit greatly once this projected is completed, as citizens and various government agencies can better prepare and plan what to do and what emergency response programs to activate, if and when a weather-related disaster occurs.

“The IBM Blue Gene supercomputer will be most applicable to DOST’s major programs such as NOAH and Smart Agriculture, “said DOST Secretary Mario G. Montejo. “First we will work toward Blue Gene’s integration to Project NOAH to provide more advanced seven-day local weather forecasts. We can also use it to run various weather models and validate the accuracy of results almost real-time.”

“Smart Agriculture, the newest flagship program of the DOST, will also gain from our newest supercomputing capability in modeling climate change scenarios, building database for agricultural land use, and computing for monthly irrigation requirements per province,” Sec. Montejo added.

Other possible projects to be aided by the IBM Blue Gene supercomputer include flood management and genomics. (PNA)