Cedric Festin

Cedric Angelo Festin leads the Network and Distributed Systems Group and was formerly the department chair of the University of the Philippines – Diliman, Department of Computer Science. He has a Ph.D. in Computer Science from University College London and a Master's Degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of the Philippines. Recently, he was a Visiting Researcher at the University of California Berkeley, working with the Technology and Infrastructure for Emerging Regions (TIER) group. His current research focuses on the design and development of network communications and protocols for application in emerging regions, such as those used for e-Learning and health information systems.

Currently, he is the project leader of the Village Base Station Project, where community cellular networks providing 2G voice and SMS, are deployed in remote rural barangays in the Philippines. In addition, he also the lead investigator for "Bayanihanets", a cooperative system that delivers better and more accessible Internet connectivity through the practice of bayanihan (a Filipino expression for a deeply traditional and cultural type of cooperation) among its users.