In a simple ceremony held at the UP Board of Regents’ Room, UP Diliman (UPD) renewed its partnership with the Fluor Daniel, Inc.-Philippines (FDIP) for another five years.

The FDIP is part of the multinational engineering and construction firm FLUOR Corporation.

Under the MOA, FDIP “is a corporation engaged in the business of engineering, procurement, fabrication, construction (EPFC), maintenance, and project management across a broad range of industries, whose corporate initiatives, among others, are to uplift social, cultural, and economic growth of the communities in which it is holding business.”

The University through the UPD College of Engineering (COE) has been in partnership with FDIP since 2012, “with the signing of the Deed of Donation of the FLUOR Lecture Room at the [UPD] Department of Mining, Metallurgical, and Materials Engineering (DMMME) building,” said Alfonso A. Aliga Jr., executive director of the UP Engineering Research and Development Foundation, Inc.

“Our collaboration is 14 years and growing and has gone through three general managers. It has gone through three [UP] presidents, (Alfredo A. Pascual, Danilo L. Concepcion, and Angelo A. Jimenez), and four chancellors (Caesar A. Saloma, PhD; Michael L. Tan, DVM, PhD; Fidel R. Nemenzo, DSc; and Edgardo Carlo L. Vistan II, LLM),” he added.

“The industry is a very important partner of the academe not only in terms of the material resources that it generously shares but more importantly in terms of the industry experience it provides to our students and to our young faculty members through internship programs. Internship programs enhance the learning of our students, wherein they are able to apply what they have learned from the classroom. These are also good opportunities for our students to experience how it is to work in the real world. And learn other skills such as communication, leadership, and time management. It is a way of preparing our students for their shift to full-fledged engineers in the industry. We thank FDIP for its strong support to the University,” COE Dean Maria Antonia N. Tanchuling said in her message delivered by National Graduate School of Engineering Director Louis Angelo Danao.

For his part, Vistan lauded FDIP for its dynamic and healthy partnership with UPD.

“Industry linkages with companies like FDIP help us to ensure that we do produce the best graduates in the country. In this part of the world, we can’t do that alone. That’s what we learned since way back. We’re happy that FDIP has taken bold, innovative, and I would say, aggressive steps towards helping UP and for that we are very grateful. I’m impressed that beyond material support, FDIP is active in helping us develop our curricula, even delivering learning experiences through lectures, and I think that’s very important, that’s very significant because that is how our students and even our faculty learn from people outside our campus,” he said.

According to the MOA, UPD and the FDIP will “work together to determine and implement mutually acceptable initiatives” to “further elevate the skills of their students, making them well-prepared to join the EPFC industry.”

Both UPD and FDIP will work on initiatives and projects that will address the enhancement of UPD’s engineering and/or computer science curriculum/programs; enhancement of UPD facilities; FDIP conduct of learning sessions in UPD; engineering and/or computer science faculty immersion; student internship; and scholarship.

Representing FDIP at the MOA signing were David Djojodihardjo, FDIP general manager and German Camigla, executive sponsor of FDIP.

Also present at the MOA signing were Abe Jun Clarito, chair of the Global University Sponsorship Program of the FDIP and Christian G. Arranz, an assistant professor at the DMMME.

The MOA signing last March 15 was also witnessed by several members of the COE faculty and staff.