STI History
It all started when four visionaries conceptualized setting up a training center to fill very specific manpower needs. Sarte — four entrepreneurs and friends — came together to set up Systems Technology Institute, a training center that delivers basic programming education to professionals and students who want to learn this new skill. Lagman, Gamboa, and Sarte were all heavily involv
ed in the growing computer industry, while Santos just retired from his IT position in a pharmaceutical company. Sarte’s software house, Systems Resources Incorporated (SRI), kept losing programmers and analysts to jobs abroad. Programmers and analysts were a rare breed then, with only a few training centers offering courses on computer programming. There was a clear need to find and hire people for SRI, and fulfill the need of a growing business industry that was migrating to automated or computerized business processes. The founders transformed the problem into an opportunity. Systems Technology Institute’s name came from countless brainstorming sessions among the founders, perhaps from Sarte’s penchant for three-letter acronyms from the companies he managed at the time. The first two schools were inaugurated on August 21, 1983 in Buendia, Makati and in España, Manila and offered basic computer programming courses. With a unique and superior product in their hands, it was not difficult to expand the franchise through the founders’ business contacts. A year after the first two schools opened, the franchise grew to include STI Binondo, Cubao, and Taft. A unique value proposition spelled the difference for the STI brand then: “First We’ll Teach You, Then We’ll Hire You.” Through its unique Guaranteed Hire Program (GHP), all qualified graduates were offered jobs by one of the founders’ companies, or through their contacts in the industry. The schools’ 1st batch of graduates, all 11 of them, were hired by SRI. And through GHP, more qualified STI graduates found themselves working in their field of interest straight out of school. No one among the four founders imagined that the Systems Technology Institute would become a college, or would grow to have over 100 schools across the country. But it did, all because of its unique value proposition, the synergy between the founders and their personnel, and the management’s faithfulness to quality. Before the 1990s ended, STI also recognized the younger generation’s needs for superior IT-enabled education. It was during this time that STI started to venture into basic and secondary education. With its vast experience in managing tertiary level campuses, STI understood the responsibility of providing the same quality of learning tools and experiences to preparatory, elementary, and high school students. The outcome was the launch of the STI Basic Education and STI High School. Integrating the foundations of education, STI established its first Prep School in 1998 in Las Piñas and Parañaque. Las Piñas also became the venue for the first STI Grade School in 1999 and the first STI High School in 2000. In 1999, five Prep Schools were opened in Makati, Mandaluyong, Katipunan, Better Living-Parañaque, and Green Meadows, Quezon City. The following year, STI Prep School Cubao joined the roster of the STI Basic Education System. A long way since its birth, STI has transcended beyond ICT, beyond education, and beyond the Philippines.
