Who is Digital Environmentalist?

Hello eReaders!
Welcome to my professional world - my new extended blog mainly dedicated for my academic endeavour in the field of civil and environmental engineering, including urban planning, environmental management, and real estate development. Why on those areas? I will explain why my academic interests focused on them by giving you the stages of my learning process, from inside the classroom to the outside world of living.
I did my bachelor degree in Civil Engineering in a state university but prior to that course, I did a 3-year diploma in Civil Technology at the same school. At the age of 19, I started working full time in the university, while taking classes during the evening. Upon completion of BS degree, I took the state board/licensure exam and fortunately I passed it. Eventually, I decided to resign from my first job and joined a local council/government planning office. From that work as a Planning Officer, my interest in planning and enviromental issues grew as the years past until I attended a 20-month postgraduate program in urban planning at the Asian Institute of Technology (Thailand) with a full scholarship grant.
My third job offered me alot of opportunities in the development and management of environmental and business trainings for professionals in developing countries. Time flies, I decided to go back to my home country and applied my knowledge gained from working abroad. But after 7 years, I decided to go back again to school to further hone my expertise which I took a research program in environmental engineering at the University of Queensland (Brisbane, Australia). Fortunately I got an AusAID scholarship for two years and after that I went back to my home country again and I joined a consulting firm which mainly manages foreign funded environmental projects. With my dedication to my work, it seems that Ive been working in that firm for so many years, but in reality I only stayed for one year. I love my work but I have to grab the rare opportunity to take a doctoral program abroad (Northern Ireland, UK) with full scholarship! Well, the rest is still on-going ...

Time flies and it is almost 5 years now when I embarked in my doctoral program. It is a struggle and I do hope that by early 2011 I will successfully submit my revised thesis for the conferment of my degree. I did pass the oral defence a year ago, but it is just Im already burned out and for the past months, I strugged to look for job opportunities elsewhere, consequently affected my focus and motivation to sit-down and finish my corrections. Anyway, no regrets at all and Im very optimistic to hurdle this personal struggle and be able to achieve what I really wanted in life!

Efren Penaflorida - Filipino CNN Heroes 2009 nominee

ANOTHER FILIPINO TO BE RECOGNISED AS A LIVING HERO! For more stories, click the image below or the link: HERE.

The DigitalEnvironmentalist - top environmental and civil engineering blog

I AM DELIGHTED TO TELL MY READERS that my blogsite is chosen as one of the top 50 environmental blogsites and at the same time as one of the top 30 civil engineering sites.

The "Online Engineering Degree" site identified and selected blogs that have reference to engineering, particularly in environmental and civil engineering fields; also provides relevant information on engineering education and learning. The site provides a relevant links to these blogs, including my blog, The DigitalEnvironmentalist as listed in top 6 and 14, environmental engineering and civil engineering, respectively.

Having this recognition, it inspired me more to share my professional experiences - helping Mother Earth to be a healthy and safe environment to live in!

Blog Action Day: Poverty and the Internet

JOINING BLOGSPOT/BLOGGER'S annual blog action day is a privilege where I could share my time in a small, simple and different way thru my website. The theme is a pressing issue and much more requires attention than war or anything else. It is beyond war between guns and missiles, or armies and extremists but it is a war against hunger and deprivation from basic needs in life.

Awareness and access to information is instrumental in reducing or alleviating POVERTY around the world. Worldwide web (www) or the internet is a powerful tool to disseminate information and assistance for society that needs urgent attention. Access to right organisations and individuals are vital to properly address the problem and somehow facilitate immediate action with avaiable resources. Thus, combating and alleviating poverty is a big challenge particularly for a developing nation to ensuring every citizen has direct and sustainable access to basic services, especially food, shelter and education.

Utilising google and yahoo search engines, there are numerous interesting links that discuss POVERTY. From various press releases to private and public initiatives/programmes, from images to videos, and of course from blogs to blogs! There is so much information on-line that provides the spectrum of POVERTY. As my simple gesture of my contribution on blog action day is to highlights some of them and briefly reflects each of these links.

Defining Poverty. Wikipedia defines poverty as "deprivation of common necessities that determine the quality of life, including food, clothing, shelter and safe drinking water, and may also include the deprivation of opportunities to learn, to obtain better employment to escape poverty, and/or to enjoy the respect of fellow citizens". It is interesting to note that access to "clean and potable" drinking water and "better" jobs are other aspects to be addressed in poverty alleviation.

Causes of Poverty. The site has relevant posts and links that explains the main causes of poverty, including shocking facts and figures to show the extent of this global problem. Poverty is being tagged with politics, corruption, degradation of the environment, ethics, and land ownerships.

Spectrum of Poverty. Poverty is a worldwide threat which this site explains the range or gamut of it: hunger and diseases (AIDS, TB, diarrhea, and measles). According to UN, almost 25,000 people die every day of hunger or hunger-related causes which brings to a ratio of 1 person = every three and a half seconds, and mostly children die.

Speaking of children, there were three tragic events happened last year in my home country, the Philippines when two young boys and a girl (in different locations) decided to end up their lives due to poverty. It was really sad to hear their stories which inspired one of my Multiply contacts/friends to write his own reflection. It is worth reading it and I do believe that Roland sincerely voiced his concern about the role of the youths of today and how poverty affects their hopes and dreams becomes a reality.

Roland's, ROPE OR HOPE reminds us of the challenges that poverty brings to the next generation, and as he finally says, "Imagine if the youth of today are living with all their hopes...if they are reached out and are all groomed to be the next generation of leaders ... if such imagination comes to reality... I couldn’t even imagine how perfect the future of our nation would be!

So many images flooded in the internet which vividly show the extent of the damage that poverty brings to the people and community, and will continue to affect more lives in the years to come if this is not given utmost attention especially by our current world leaders. Some of these revealing faces of poverty posted in Flickr on Global Poverty (Note: The images below were taken from CARF's photostream)



Finally, I do love videos and thru Youtube, I was able to browse some of the interesting clips that convey that Poverty is in Motion!


(Note: This is the link for last year's Blogger's Action Day)