Wow, a full article. I’m very lucky to be featured as this month’s fun fearless female in Cosmopolitan Philippines.
Fun fearless female special
The is originally published in the January 2004 issue of Cosmopolitan Philippines.
In 1997, the Internet was just beginning to boom commercially in the Philippines. Cybercafes were beginning to sprout in the city, computer colleges had begun their fight for enrollment supremacy, and a Computer Science sophomore fell in love with cyberspace.
Pinay Internaut Cheryl Fuerte–known to the cyberworld as Inday–is a five-time Philippine Web Award winner and one of the very few females in the field of I.T. “I had the advantage of being the ‘first mover,'” she explains. “The first time I joined the Webby Awards, I was still in college while the contenders were already working.” Cheryl was only 20 and just about the graduate from a degree in Computer Science from De La Salle University. The website she created and designed–a Donna Cruz fan site–won the People’s Choice Award, and for the next five years, her personal and professional websites were consistent finalists and winners.
Her love affair with websites and anything computers began with a cursory exit interview with the high school counselor. “Nung fourth year high school ako, sabi ng counselor ko ‘ineng, dalawa lang dapat ang kunin mo sa college: law o computer science.” She figured that taking up law would take too much of her time, so she chose the latter. But it was during her second year in college when the school began providing Internet and e-mail access to its students, that Cheryl was bitten by the cyberbug.
She discovered that “if you have a website and you make it very very good, hindi mo na kailangan maging artista, so to speak. With your website you can say anything–you become an instant publisher and producer.” Her quiet friendliness and down-to-earth candor with both fans and friends also has encouraged a few young women to pursue a career in web design.
“if you have a website and you make it very very good, hindi mo na kailangan maging artista, so to speak. With your website you can say anything–you become an instant publisher and producer.”
Like many adored personalities, she goes by a cheeky monicker–in the cyberworld she’s affectionately known as Inday. She christened herself one day when her ninang’s child ran up to her while she was doing the dishes, and asked for her name. She impulsively answered “Tita Inday” and began using the same for her personal website. “When you say ‘The Official Website of Cheryl Fuerte’ it doesn’t mean anything, it doesn’t stick to you,” explains Cheryl. “But when you say ‘Inday,’ it’s short and unique. It has branding.”
With plans to refurbish and overhaul both her personal website and the Donna Cruz fansite (“I’ve been a fan ever since I first saw her in Villa Quintana! Feeling ko naka-identify ako sa character niya.”), Cheryl says that there indeed is a distinct pleasure in creating websites that are both extremely creative and functional. “My passion is designing usable websites. When you design and think of something that’s wonderful, something that’s really used by the people, it feels really good.”
The is originally published in the January 2004 issue of Cosmopolitan Philippines.