Preparations for INDIE 2014 UPIE Homecoming Set

The University of the Philippines Industrial Engineering Alumni Association  (UPIEAA) will be holding its Grand Homecoming on October 4, 2014 at the Melchor Hall, U.P. College of Engineering Lobby at 5:00PM.

The College of Engineering is the largest college in the UP System and has nearly 5,000 undergraduate and 800 graduate students coming from six departments and two institutes.  The Department of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research (DIEOR) accounts for approximately 10% of the students and currently has 21 full-time faculty and 7 adjunct faculty members with nearly 70% of the faculty holding advanced degrees.  The current department chairman is Prof. Lowell Lorenzo.

The alumni dinner event promises to be a star-studded affair, to be hosted by Abby Asistio, singer, songwriter, and a regular TV & events host with equally famous events host and motivational speaker Jordan Escusa. The “stars” expected to come are the IEs who have populated various Philippine industries and enterprises, occupying positions in such areas as marketing, personnel, information systems, operations planning, logistics, productivity improvement, and corporate planning, in companies engaged in manufacturing, BPO, telecom, airlines, banking, insurance, technology, shipping & distribution, food services, retail, oil & gas, as well as in government service. In addition, a fair share of UPIE graduates have founded start-ups and set up new businesses. This has been the inspiration for the theme of this year’s homecoming: Insatiable, Non-Conforming, Daring Industrial Engineers (INDIE). Fun and entertainment are in store for everyone from Batches 1969 to 2013! In addition to great company, fine food, and live music entertainment, major raffle prizes are also in store for the lucky attendees.

A major item in the program is the awarding of the Distinguished Alumni award, which will go to the alumnus or alumna who had distinguished herself or himself in the field. UP’s first industrial engineering students were accepted in 1965 with the first graduations coming in 1969. Interestingly, despite its 45-year history, the UPIEAA was incorporated only in 2006. The current alumni association president is Elise del Rosario, a 1977 graduate.