UP Radio Circle concluded the last day of its 9th Installment of Elevate

Precious Mae Mercado

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 7 — Student-Journalists from Letran SHS Fourth Estate attended the UP Radio Circle’s 9th installment of Elevate: Student Journalism Workshop with a theme, “Finding Identity Amid Media Plurality.” Capping the last day of this year’s installment is a webinar about the topic “Disrupting the Media Landscape”. The event was still held online via Facebook Live due to the ongoing pandemic.

The journalism webinar began with the discussion of the topic, “Disruptive Technology and Social Innovation”, a session facilitated by Mr. Jay Jaboneta, the Founder of I am VR Panda, Managing Director of Nexus Innovation Labs, and Co-Founder of the Yellow Boat of Hope Foundation Inc. He is considered as one of the seven modern-age Filipino heroes. Mr. Jaboneta talked through the ideas about his foundation called ‘Yellow Boat’ wherein their main goal is to help students and even teachers who are having a hard time crossing rivers and lakes just to go to school by giving them a Yellow Boat that they can use to go where they want to be. Moreover, he further emphasized the main message of the foundation, stating that technology can really make a difference.

In addition, Mr. Jaboneta also discussed the growth of using technology as a way to communicate, browse news, access information, do work, and many more. Focusing on the future of new media and communications technology. He discussed how Mixed Reality, Augmented Reality, and Virtual Reality can be innovative and helpful in our life. He pointed out that from gathering out the sources in making this new technology possible, the results can lessen a lot of waste. Furthermore, he added that it is a natural progression for us humans to embrace the new technology. He ended his discussion with a quote from Yellow Boat as it states that ‘The great thing a little lamp can do which the big sun cannot do is give light at night.’

Moving forward, the event then proceeded to its second session where they discussed the topic of Raising Mental Health Awareness through Game Creation, spearheaded by Ms. Michelle Chen. She is a Game Developer who graduated with a degree of Master of Science in Video Game Enterprise and Production at Birmingham City University, UK. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Design at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Australia, and is currently developing video games about mental health. Adding to the list, she is also a STEM Ambassador, Women in Games Ambassador, and a Making Space board member. She explained that games have the potential to be so much more, like movies or books that have a medium to communicate and express ideas. She mentioned that ”In games, you are given the power of choice, and as a player, anything you do affects your characters.” She believed that games are an excellent medium for knowledge translations. Additionally, she explained that a good way to talk about mental health awareness is through video games as it inspires players to gain a more insightful understanding of other people’s experiences.

To top it all off, the last speaker, Ms. Chen also pointed out that developing these kinds of games about depression and anxiety could help a person feel empathy towards other people who suffer the struggles and give them an opportunity to be kind to others. It also makes people feel that they are not alone. In addition, she also pointed out that developing a game is not just about code, it's also an art of writing and creating music, and as a creator, she has many ways to express herself.

Lastly, she answered one of the questions raised by the students about what inspired her from pursuing this type of career about mixed reality, augmented, and virtual reality types of games. She believed that something new is exciting. And when it is entirely unique, you have a lot of ideas where literally, the sky’s the limit and you are the one who is responsible for setting your path since there is nothing wrong with it. With the disruptive impacts of technologies, on a brighter note, it becomes an approach to provide a lot of opportunities to come up with new and better ideas in the future.

Elevate: The Student Journalism Workshop finally concluded its webinar workshop series and discussed multiple topics on Jump-Starting a Career in Journalism, Breaking Big in Broadcasting, and Disrupting the Media Landscape which took place from October 24th and 31st, and November 7th respectively. In line with this, the topics which were discussed will still be posted and accessible via the Official Facebook Page of Elevate: Student Journalism Workshop.