PayMaya will serve as the "e-Wallet" of the newly-launched Gabay Guro app

As the entire country prepares for the official start of the new school year under the New Normal, digital financial services leader PayMaya is helping teachers and their students through various promos and programs.  

 

"We are one with the entire country in helping ensure that our teachers and students can thrive even in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. As the education sector shifts to digital, they deserve all the support through the relevant technologies," said Orlando B. Vea, Founder and CEO of PayMaya. 

 

An estimated 30 million teachers, school personnel, and students are adopting to the radical shift of classes from face-to-face to online this school year. The figure corresponds to close to 28% of our country's total population. 

 

Financial inclusion for teachers

 

In partnership with Gabay Guro, the flagship advocacy program for teachers of the PLDT-Smart Foundation, PayMaya aims to encourage teachers to open their own financial accounts so they can easily participate in the digital economy. 

 

PayMaya will serve as the "e-Wallet" of the newly-launched Gabay Guro app, enabling teachers to do basic financial transactions such as sending money, paying their bills and purchases, and buying airtime load. They can also gain extra income opportunities as well, aside from being able to access teaching tools, resources, and the Gabay Guro online community. 

 

By embedding PayMaya's functionalities within the Gabay Guro app, PLDT-Smart Foundation and PayMaya are promoting digital financial inclusion and financial stewardship among our teachers. 

 

PayMaya will also be working with PLDT-Smart Foundation in integrating financial education with current Gabay Guro online trainings to help teachers manage their finances better. 

 

More rewarding experience for our educators and students 

 

To encourage our country's more than 1 million teachers nationwide to open their own financial accounts, PayMaya is giving away P300,000 worth of prizes in time for the Gabay Guro Grand Gathering happening on October 3. 

 

All teachers have to do is download the PayMaya app, register for an account using their mobile number, and enter PYMYGABAYGURO as the referral code in the field provided to qualify for the raffle promo running from October 3 to 10, 2020. Teachers will have the chance to be one of one hundred winners of P1,000, ten winners of P10,000, or the sole grand raffle prize winner of P100,000.

 

Meanwhile, teachers and students likewise can safely and conveniently avail of discounted mobile data packages for online schooling through the PayMaya app, no matter what mobile network they are using.

 

They simply have to go to the Shop section of the PayMaya app to purchase the mobile data package that they need, which they can send to their own or another person's mobile number. The discount amount will be sent to their account via a cashback voucher which they can also redeem within the app.

 

Getting PayMaya and going cashless is very easy. Teachers just have to download the PayMaya app for Android or iOS here, register for an account using their mobile number, and they can instantly use the app to do various financial transactions.

 

The much-anticipated Gabay Guro yearly event in honor of our educators serves as the culmination of the National Teachers’ Month, celebrated every Sept. 5 until Oct. 5, which is World Teachers’ Day. October 5 also coincides with the official start of the new school year under the New Normal, with online classes becoming the practice as community health quarantine measures are still in place due to the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic.   

 

PayMaya is the only end-to-end digital payments ecosystem enabler in the Philippines with platforms and services that cut across consumers, merchants, and government. Aside from providing payments acceptance for the largest e-Commerce, food, retail, and gas merchants in the Philippines, PayMaya enables national and social services agencies as well as local government units with digital payments and disbursement services.

Smart inks deal to install hotspots in UP campuses nationwide

'Iskolars ng Bayan' to access online resources for free

Free connectivity fosters collaborative learning. Smart Communications, Inc. (Smart) and the University of the Philippines have recently signed a Memorandum of Agreement that will further advance the national university’s bid to become globally competitive. Under the agreement that was signed by UP president Alfredo E. Pascual (right) and Smart chief wireless advisor Orlando B. Vea (left), Smart will provide free wireless connectivity to the UP community to promote digital inclusion.



Smart Communications, Inc. (Smart), the leader in mobile telecommunications, has formalized its commitment to provide free connectivity and access points to all the constituent universities of the University of the Philippines System across the country.

 A Memorandum of Agreement covering the provision of free wireless connectivity to the UP System was recently signed between UP led by its president Alfredo E. Pascual, and Smart led by its chief wireless advisor Orlando B. Vea at the UP Executive House in Diliman, Quezon City.

“This fosters more collaborative learning within the UP community, and allows every Isko and Iska to access online learning resources for free,” said Vea.  “For us at Smart, this is part of our vision for digital inclusion, of making the Internet more accessible so that more Filipinos get to enjoy its benefits.”

For his part, UP president Pascual said, “This is more than just a simple triumph of technology.  The hotspots will be a catalyst in unifying the seven constituent universities and one constituent college of the UP System and will signal the start of greater collaboration between UP and Smart in bringing Philippine education into the 21st century.”

Under the agreement, websites whitelisted by Smart and UP can be accessed for free over WiFi inside UP campuses. Meanwhile, sites that are not whitelisted can still be accessed for free for 30 minutes per day. Data usage beyond that period will be charged the usual rates.

Smart will be installing 120 hotspots initially in various UP campuses.  It will also put up eight new base stations to add to the six that are already inside UP.

This move is in support of the integrated computerization of the University under the eUP project, a key initiative under UP’s Strategic Plan which aims to make the country’s one and only national university more competitive in the region and in the world.

“The eUP project is envisioned to seamlessly integrate UP’s information and communications infrastructure system-wide, enhance service delivery, and achieve operational excellence,” said Pascual.

The initiative of providing Internet connectivity to the UP community complements the computerization project, which is being supported by Smart’s sister-firm, ePLDT, which won the competitive bidding for the core programs needed for the project. ePLDT will use a package of Oracle software to run the University’s information management systems. Several software modules of the system are also being developed internally by UP.

UP officials said the computerization project will provide an integrated, interconnected, harmonized, and interoperable ICT network within and across all the constituent universities of UP.

“We have to start somewhere, right now — as they say in UP — kung hindi tayo, sino; kung di ngayon, kailan?  This MOA signing is a good way to help make the eUP project a reality. We’re in this together,” said Vea, who is a UP alumnus.

Smart has committed to be a partner not just by providing wireless infrastructure, but also by reinforcing education and development programs that benefit the students and the nation. Its continuous support to students and universities is demonstrated in the Smart Wireless Engineering Education Program (SWEEP), its partnership with the UP Open University (UPOU). Smart and UPOU are jointly offering courses on Android Mobile Applications Development, and Technopreneurship, via the massive online open course (MOOC) model.

Under its Smart Schools Program, Smart has instituted various customized programs that cater to the specific needs of learning communities from primary up to the tertiary level in a bid to help enhance Philippine education using mobile and web technologies.