Among the awardees is the NICP Past President & Board Member Atty. Jocelle Batapa-Sigue. She was awarded as the IT-BPM Individual Contributor of the Year. Atty. Jocelle is the Chairperson of the Bacolod-Negros Occidental Federation for Information and Communications Technology (BNEFIT), Inc. and VICTOR, an association of the ICT councils of Region VI, VII ad VIII and the members of the Regional Development Councils of all the Visayas Regions.

Included in her vast list of achievements, Atty. Jocelle has played an important role in boosting the ICT-BPM Industry in the Philippine countryside by actively promoting the Next Wave Cities (NWC) program started by the then Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT), Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the Information Technology & Business Processing Association of the Philippines (IBPAP), as having highly encouraged cities outside of Metro Manila and Cebu to improve competitiveness as ICT-enabled industry locations. Today, the NWC program was fully embraced by the Information and Communications Technology Office(ICTO) of the Department of Science and Technology as one of its core programs in partnership with BPAP and NICP. “a win for Jocelle is doubly sweet because that outstanding contributor award extends to NICP and its collective aspiration for meaningful countryside development thru ICT” says NICP President Wit Holganza.

In her Facebook account, Atty. Jocelle posted:

“Reconstructing my impromptu acceptance speech – I feel like a beauty queen tonight, because I got my plaque from a beauty queen. Seriously, I would like to receive this award for and in behalf of all the ICT councils untiringly working to help sustain the growth of IT-BPO companies especially in the cities and provinces from Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. I would like to share this award to all industry associations and local stakeholders working hard to help generate jobs and investments for the country. Finally and most importantly, I share this award with the more than 900,000 BPO workforces helping your companies grow in the Philippines. Thank you for your trust’ and confidence in the countryside, rest assured we will continue to do our work. Good evening!”