It won’t be long before a school for creative innovators and developers will rise in San Pedro, Laguna. Recently, Unionbank held a virtual groundbreaking ceremony for its Innovation Campus, a real estate property development that will support its innovation initiatives.
Unionbank began its digital journey 5 years ago. That digitalization proved especially advantageous during this pandemic as consumers and depositors shifted their transactions heavily to online. Unionbank President and CEO, Edwin Bautista, said the Innovation Campus is “a dream come true and a testament to the commitment of Management and the Board to innovation as a major strategic thrust”.
The first-in-industry facility, which is being built on a one-hectare property in San Pedro, Laguna, the Innovation Campus will act as a hub for research and development that will further boost Unionbank’s digital capabilities. In addition, the campus will house various centers of innovation within UnionBank, including its institutes on Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, its digital bank EON, as well as the recently-launched Asian Institute of Digital Transformation (AIDT), which is in partnership with Global Learning Solutions Singapore.
Yngen Holdings President Eugenio Ynion was also among the key figures who joined the event. A long-time collaborator of UnionBank, Yngen Holdings has helped co-create many solutions that utilize the Bank’s expertise in digital banking. According to Ynion, the Innovation Campus will be the first of the establishments that will form part of the San Antonio Digital Hub.
According to Unionbank’s Ramon Duarte, Unionbank’s Transaction Banking Center Head, the Innovation Campus is a culmination of their digital transformation which began 5 years ago. It will have ample space for training, will be a hub for collaboration opportunities, and will have key development software designs under one roof.
Here are some additional things about the Innovation Campus I got from the event’s Q&A:
- P600 million is being budgeted for the first building
- The building will be a LEED-certified building – a LEED certifications given to a green, environment-friendly building
- 70% of the land will be devoted to open spaces and greenery
- Initially, the courses will be offered digitally but eventually, they will hold face-to-face classes
- Since many employees will be from Metro Manila, they are already studying how to shuttle people in and out of the campus
- They are also looking around the San Pedro, Laguna area for IT talents
The Innovation Campus is something we can all look forward to. It will provide a digital native environment for many IT and creative people and can potentially push us closer to greater financial inclusion as more applications are developed that can bring the unbanked and underbanked into the financial digital space.