IP Converge Data Services, Inc. Partners with PIA for Scholarship for Underprivileged Youth

IPC (IP Converge Data Services, Inc.), a pioneer in local cloud and data center services, announces its partnership with Philippine International Aid (PIA), a U.S.-based charity providing health and educational assistance to underprivileged youth.

One of the PIA’s core initiatives is the “Off the Streets-Off to School” scholarship, a program that helps parents and teachers to keep kids in school. Administered in partnership with the Phil-Asia Assistance Foundation, the Off the Streets–Off to School program provides scholarships annually to more than 1,000 children in Metro Manila.

Together with their partners, PIA helps students go through primary education onwards to college. The student's academic progress is monitored throughout the academic year and are encouraged to correspond with their respective benefactors.

Heading the organization is Mona Lisa Yuchengco, the founder and publisher of PositivelyFilipino.com, an online magazine on the Filipino diaspora. She also serves on the board of the Women’s Media Center, a non-profit progressive women's media organization. Working with her at PIA are successful Filipino-American business executives living in the Bay Area such as Executive Director James T. Lim, the current General Manager of the Omni Hotel, Secretary Sonia T. Delen, a Senior Vice-President at Bank of America Leasing, and France M. Viana, a strategic marketing consultant who currently heads the marketing department of the San Francisco World Affairs Council.

“PIA started out as a scholarship fund to send street children to school, to take them away from the streets where they were being recruited by pimps, and to place them in schools where they belong. Since then, thousands of children have gone through the program. Many of them have graduated college and gotten jobs, and are now able to help support their families,” said Yuchengco.

Under the program, IPC will fund the school expenses of 5 students of the Eulogio Rodriguez Integrated School in Mandaluyong City. The funds provided will take care of tuition fees, books, supplies, field trip costs, uniforms, shoes, and allowances for meals and transportation.

“Supporting the Off the Streets-Off to School program was an easy decision for us because IPC is always looking for ways to use its resources and expertise to give back to the community,” said Reynaldo Huergas, President of IPC. “Everyone of us is very excited to be part of this amazing project. We know that a lot of students are forced to drop out of school because of money and hopefully with our partnership with PIA, we can help those students stay and learn so that they can have a better future.”

This is the second time that IPC has teamed up with a charity dedicated to help improve education. In 2014, they lent their cloud technology services to assist the Teachers for the Philippines in documenting and tracking the effectivity of their teaching programs.

“We are always eager to lend a helping a hand to those in need, especially when it comes to education. We firmly believe that everyone should have access to education and IPC is happy to help schools and students alike in any way we can,” added Huergas.

Counter DDoS Attacks with IPC DDoS Mitigation Strategy

According to IPC (IP Converge Data Services, Inc.), the country’s pioneer DDoS Mitigation service provider, Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks increased 43% percent to 34,000 attacks in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region, citing a report by its partner Nexusguard, global leader in DDoS mitigation.

The largest increase was seen in Hong Kong, where attacks rose an astonishing 57%. China, which saw a 50% increase in attacks, is the number one target in the region. According to the report, over the course of a month a Chinese website was attacked 41 times. The Philippines on the other hand is one of the countries who experienced the least DDoS attacks, together with Indonesia and Malaysia.

IPC strongly recommends that businesses to be prepared by updating and strengthening their security systems. “The currently low numbers of the Philippines should not be taken as a signal to be complacent. Instead, the huge increase of DDoS attacks in the region and the world should be a wake-up call to businesses as we become more and more digitally active,” said Niño Valmonte, Director for Product Management & Marketing of IPC.

“Almost every company is going digital these days and the more that this trend continues, the more cybercriminals will try to access your network. Once your company becomes digital, it is imperative to implement highly effective data security measures,” added Valmonte.

The report also revealed an alarming increase in public attacks. “We expect the upward trend in the frequency of attacks to continue this year, especially with more attention to the Summer Olympics and political dispute in the APAC region,” said Terrence Gareau, chief scientist at Nexusguard. “And as Pokémon Go gradually launches across the Asian market, Nexusguard analysts expect attack groups will launch more public attacks. This activity increases visibility and positioning as DDoS-for-hire services, the popularity of which we noted from the consistent time durations this quarter.”

Attacks on the Network Time Protocol (NTP) dominated 90% of the attack types in the region, a stark contrast from the global distribution which experienced only 46% of this type of attack. The NTP is a protocol used for clock synchronization that is used by machines connected to the Internet to set their clocks accurately. Once attacked, hackers can gain access to hundreds of computers, depending on how many the NTP has interacted with. The quarter also saw the increased weaponization of ransomware within DDoS tools as a new “fad” for propagating home infections.

The solution to counter these attacks is a sound DDoS mitigation strategy. IPC is the first and only DDoS Mitigation service provider in the Philippines with round the clock DDoS attack monitoring and in-country attack mitigation for local enterprises and institutions. Branded as “inCAST” or In-Country Attack Scrubbing Tactics, the facility uses state-of-the-art equipment, manned by DDoS mitigation specialists so customers are assured of protection from looming attacks.

Learn more about IPC’s in-country DDoS mitigation services at ipc.ph/incast.

Free Enterprise Digital Workshop for Business and Entrepreneurs by IP Converge Data Services, Inc. IPC

IPC (IP Converge Data Services, Inc.), local cloud services pioneer, will be holding a free digital enterprise innovation seminars for business owners and entrepreneurs.

“Digital is the new Normal. If a company doesn't take advantage of today’s plethora of readily available enterprise applications, it runs the risk of being left behind by competition who do,” said Niño Valmonte, Director for Product Management & Marketing at IPC. “Doing business in this day and age compels us to adopt a digital mindset, and the fastest and most cost-efficient way to do it is through the cloud.”


Entitled “Gear up to Innovate: An essential blueprint for digital transformation”, the session aims to emphasize to businesses the importance of a digital mindset in today’s highly connected world. Insights about digital best practices will be shared and the most relevant cloud-based business tools will be explored.

Attendees will be engaged in an immersive demo of collaborative business applications and witness how workplace productivity can be elevated through these tools. More importantly, IPC will elaborate on the effective ways to migrate business processes to the cloud.

The “Gear up to Innovate” seminar series starts on August 19, 2016 and will run until the end of the year. It will be held at 1:30 PM - 5:50 PM on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from there on at 34F RCBC Plaza Tower 2, Ayala Avenue, Makati City.

Participants will be accommodated on a first come, first served basis. To register, visit http://gearup.ipc.ph.