For the past 5 years, the PWC of Davao HZB-SFAD platforms have showed considerable successes in helping its students realize the potential of their capstone projects, as facilitated in its curricular program of instruction; and to real industry practice, as contextualized in its community development program. Being the pioneering and only Fine Arts and Interior Design school in Mindanao with the most varied program offerings, PWC of Davao HZB SFAD continue to trail blaze outcomes-based education translated into creative entrepreneurship while also working it out as a best practice feature for accreditation. Interestingly, its Annual Students Art and Design Exhibition (ASADE) has recently been institutionalized through ACT ONE or A Convergence To Open New Engagements and deepened through thematic research and design studio outputs anchored on culture, heritage and identity. The first offering was last March during the HZB-SFAD’s Graduation Exhibition and Show entitled IndieGenius: Exhibition of Creative Research and Design Studio Production. In the community level, PWC of Davao HZB SFAD has continuously and consistently been strengthening its collaborative engagement with Indigenous Cultural Communities (ICCs)/Indigenous Peoples (IPs) specifically the Matigsalugs and Bago-Tagabawa; creative industry groups and trade organizations such as the Mindanao Trade Expo Foundation, Inc. and Davao Fashion and Design Council; and government and non-government cooperators foremost of which are the Department of Tourism, Department of Trade and Industry, National Commission for Culture and the Arts, National Commission for Indigenous Peoples, and the Deputy City Mayors of the 11 Tribes of Davao.

The experience of PWC of Davao HZB-SFAD in integrating culture to its academe-industry curriculum has inspired PWC of Davao in establishing an institution-wide “culture-based creative entrepreneurship” program to strengthen curriculum and instruction, research and community extension and development components by creating an ARTISANAL HERITAGE STUDIES AND CREATIVE ENTERPRISE CENTER (AHSCEC) and strengthening capability building of both PWC of Davao stakeholders and its recipient ICCs/IPs as collaborators or co-makers of AHSCEC. The growing interconnection and interdependence of the baccalaureate program offerings in Fine Arts, Interior Design, Tourism Management, Hotel and Restaurant Management, Teacher Education, Information Technology, Business Administration, Entrepreneurship and Food Technology are latent drivers to fuel collaboration. PWC of Davao realized then that its academic offerings are full circle programs that could potentially work together productively and contribute significantly to the local creative economy. AHSCEC is anchored on PWC of Davao’s existing Institutional Management Enterprise (IME) and Institutional Creative Arts (ICA) Programs with the Mindanao Folk Arts Museum and Studies Center (MFAMSC) as a co-located venue for AHSCEC to facilitate and process the study, development, implementation, evaluation and monitoring of the project.

We are hoping that through this partnership with CHED, we shall be able to break through developmental and sustainable projects inclusive of culture, heritage and identity vis-à-vis sound economics of creativity. In the spirit of an institution-wide and cohesive participation and a collaboration with our partner cultural communities, AHSCEC will not only promote local culture and a PWC culture of art, design and entrepreneurship, but also expand its reach to consistent and continuing developmental initiatives as it realizes its institutional mission and vision evident in the fully developed attributes of its graduates.