Skip to main content

Trinidad and Tobago as the ICT hub of the Caribbean

Image
By
I came across an email I sent in 2014 to the Ministry of Planning. I had questions based on the following headline I had come across, "US$20m loan to make T&T regional ICT hub". I didn't receive answers to my questions in that email and I even sent another follow up to that email 7 years later today. The question I now have is what became of that loan and what became of that plan? These were the questions I sent then

  • What is an ICT HUB?
  • What are benefits of an ICT Hub?
  • Are there examples of other ICT Hubs around the world that we can look to?
  • What is the timeframe for creation of the ICT Hub?
  • Can you share some specifics about our to be ICT Hub?
  • Anything else that needs to be known about the ICT Hub?

Reading the article now, I see that the hub was related to our Global IT enabled Services project. So basically we were going to develop the skills needed to provide IT services on a global level. To my knowledge some examples of ITeS include helpdesk, back office, data center operations, web development services, and digital marketing.

A Google search for "ICT hub caribbean" shows that Guyana and Jamaica have aspirations of being the ICT hub of the Caribbean. To be an ICT hub we need a thriving ICT space in Trinidad and Tobago. See my youtube presentation I did on this topic - My Views on the Tech Space in Trinidad and Tobago. We need someone in a leadership position to boldly come out and say these are the things that define an ICT hub and these are the things we are going to do to be the ICT hub of the Caribbean. Action items with due dates and persons responsible. We also need a post mortem of what was done so far? What became of the loan? What became of the Global ITeS project?

Some things from the top of my head I would like to see that will assist in us becoming the ICT hub of the Caribbean

  • Tech as a manadatory subject like Maths and English
  • Grants for web development startups
  • Support for tech bloggers and youtubers
  • Wooing remote workers to our shores
  • Tech lab as described in my youtube video 
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Below the surface

By
This is a chapter from my eleventh book called Quotation Marks Sparks . __________ "You can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf." - Jon Kabat-Zinn __________ I was looking at quotes that hit hard and this quote stood out to me. It seems mundane and obvious and often repeated. Life is about how we respond to the inevitable. It is not what happens to us but how we respond. I had to ask myself to dig deeper and look below the surface. Then I saw that when we surf we really become the waves. We become friends with the waves. The waves and us are the same. Further, the waves are created by us and in our heads. We can control the waves because who can surf all the time? Sometimes we just have to come to shore and build sand castles on shore. I asked my friend Gemini for feedback and he said that I was right, the Jon Kabat-Zinn quote initially seems like a simple call for resilience, but my deeper dive reveals profound layers. The idea that we can move beyond merely rea...
Post a Comment
Read more

A place for coders in Trinidad

By
DHub is being rebranded as CodeTT. Not sure how long before the change and launch takes place. Before you know it there will be elections again and then what if the government changes again. I am not optimistic about this. I want to be but I do not like politics. I wish society could function without politics. That aside it would be nice to have a home for coders in Trinidad and Tobago. I wonder what other countries are doing? I wonder if I will be alive if this ever happens. I think before any of this happens the government has to find a better way for citizens to communicate with them. From my experience I get the feeling that most people are just ignored. I have an idea for an app for this called GOQA - GOvernment Query App (QA also stands for Question and Answer). Every query (question, comment, suggestion, whatever) gets routed to the right person until it gets answered. Man that would be so fantastic. Finally a government that tries to listen to the people. My friend Chatty says ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Having a soft spirit

By
It is 137am. It started raining. I decided to write. I have heard about having a soft heart but what does it mean to have a soft spirit? And is having a soft heart related to having a soft spirit? My friend Chatty says that a soft heart feels deeply — it breaks, heals, and loves with tenderness — while a soft spirit moves gently through life, unresisting and at peace with what comes. The two are kin: a soft heart opens you to emotion, and a soft spirit teaches you to carry that emotion with grace. Together they make a person both tender and strong — able to feel the rain and still trust its rhythm. I like the quote, "a soft spirit in a hard world" by author and poet, butterflies rising. It resonates with how many of us feel. My friend Chatty tells me that that quote captures the quiet strength of staying gentle in a harsh world. It reflects the author's signature themes of vulnerability, tenderness, and emotional courage — the idea that softness is not weakness but a form...
Post a Comment
Read more