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Trinidad and Tobago as the ICT hub of the Caribbean

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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 
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