27 October 2015 – Philippine Trade and Industry Secretary Gregory L. Domingo went “Back to the Future” in La Serre Numérique, a 17,000 m2 digital creativity hub in the city of Valenciennes, 200 kilometers north of Paris.
Secretary Domingo was accompanied by Philippine Ambassador to France Ma. Theresa P. Lazaro as well as officials from the Philippine Embassy in Paris and the Department of Trade Industry.
During his visit, the Secretary was welcomed by Mr. Antoine Motte, Founder and CEO of Machines-3D, a 3D printing company famous for having invented a 3D printer which can “print” a house using cement in 24 hours.
Mr. Motte showed the prototype of this printer whose technology is open source. “The idea is to build low-cost, sustainable houses for the one billion homeless people in the world”, according to Mr. Motte. “I don’t want to sell this technology, I want to give it to the Philippines”.
While the prototype was tested using cement, the idea is for the printer to use construction materials indigenous to the country, such as adobe, sand or even ash. The original designs used by Mr. Motte were in fact inspired by the sandbag houses of renowned architect Nader Khalili.
Secretary Domingo also visited the Rubika schools in La Serre Numérique: ISD for design, Supinfocom for animation and Supinfogame for game development. In the 3D immersive lab, the Secretary virtually test drove a Mini Cooper designed by the Rubika ISD students.
Inaugurated only in April of this year, La Serre Numérique houses three schools and a business center for start-up incubation, business acceleration and research, encouraging “cross fertilization” among entrepreneurs, students, researchers and artists.
The visit of the Secretary was organized at the sidelines of the 7th Philippines-France Joint Economic Committee (JEC) held in Paris on October 20. The JEC is a high-level economic dialogue between the Philippines and France to promote more robust trade and economic exchanges between the two countries. The creative industries was one of the sectors the Philippines promoted during the JEC meeting in Paris. END