CEBU CITY -- The Cebu Design community launched its Design Cebu Gateway (DCG) now at www.dsigncebu.com in December this year for the design and creative sectors in Cebu and other parts of the country to navigate, connect, co-create and cultivate a dynamic online converging point.
“The DCG is fully funded by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and was developed with Zai Design Hive, Bertech Integration Services and Cebu UNESCO City of Design. The new online platform is with much more robust social media functionalities and nearly 200 registered users,” Carungay revealed.
Carungay added that even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the need for a virtual platform for Cebu’s design and creative communities was already identified, it was one of the main components of the 2019 UNESCO Bid.
“For it to be impactful, the website must be very dynamic, rich and powerful means for people to connect, co-create and cultivate with social media functionalities,” he said.
According to Carungay the gateway has two main modules. The first being an admin generated sections that include information about Cebu, the creative movement, the UNESCO bid, business frameworks, links as well as spotlighted news, events, and stories.
The second is a crowdsourced, SEO optimized and versatile module where registered users can upload their profiles, portfolios, events, and marketplace listings.
It also uses a two-tier database structure that consists of an Admin module which contains news, background information, statistics, frameworks, studies, profiles, and links. The crowdsourced and SEO optimized user module allows registered users to upload their profiles, portfolios, events and marketplace listings.
The DCG was previewed during a mini–Creative
Cebu summit which was held concurrently with the Visayas Art Fair at the end of
November 2021.
Developed, tested and piloted in Cebu, the DCG is open to all creative practitioners, stakeholders, enablers, collaborators and customers. Once fully realized, it is also meant to be replicated in other creative hotspots in the Philippines to scale its scope and reverberate its value, Carungay said.
“This portal has been many years in the making
and is the result of intensive benchmarking, research and consultations with
industry experts and stakeholders. It
also contains a lot of information taken from the 2019 UNESCO application and
the 2020 UN DESA projects,” he bared.
Currently the DCG Dashboard, Profile, Portfolio, Directory and Events are live and can onboard users who are allowed to upload a total of five portfolios with six pictures each, Carungay explained that because user info is SEO optimized, the Directory is filterable by type of user and creative discipline.
Social media functionalities have also been introduced so users can follow, like and message each other. The Admin Pages offer a wealth of info, resources, links and has an updated feed for relevant news. They also contain fun facts and trivia that one normally does not know about Cebu.
Periodic newsletters will also be mailed out to registered users and will be uploaded to the site on a regular basis to keep the content fresh and current. The DCG today has nearly 200 registered users but the onboarding campaign to reward users with the best profiles will be carried into 2023.
“Ultimately, we are hoping for thousands of regular users from all the different design and creative domains from Cebu and beyond. We hope you can help spread the word to help us realize this ambitious goal,” Carungay said.
The DCG is meant to be a powerful, informative,
and fun platform that will hopefully spark many new and exciting projects and
collaborations for those who choose to be part of this groundbreaking community,
he concluded. (Photos: Design Cebu/Butch Carungay)
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