Learning from defunct projects in tech

Update (October 12 2022) : I was told by BEF on facebook chat that the Barbados Free Wifi initiative has ended. The national goal was achieved. Coverage moved from less than 10% to over 80%. Free access is almost universal. I am glad for this new information. I had sent an email to the project champion. I will try to get from her what was learnt from this project. I will contact our Ministry of Digital Transformation in Trinidad and see what their thoughts are on doing something similar in Trinidad.

Original blog post : Who remembers the Barbados Free Wifi initiative? It was a project of the Barbados Entrepreneurship Foundation. The idea was that businesses would configure their network to provide a guest network and this would happen all over Barbados. From all my research so far this project is no longer active. I was rooting for this project and what it could achieve and then it could be copied in other Caribbean countries like Trinidad and Tobago. This would be strong for marketing tourism.

Initially I had titled this blog post "learning from failed projects in tech" but I realised that I was being harsh and ungrateful. Much time and effort goes into these projects. These projects would have realised some objectives and for some time. I searched for a better word than failed and came up with defunct. According to the dictionary defunct means no longer existing or functioning.

The main point that I want to get across is that there are valuable lessons we can learn from these projects. Then there is the possibility of reviving projects or similar. The Barbados Free Wifi initiative is just one example and there are others that we can think of. Some others that I can think of are the laptop for all secondary students project in Trinidad, C@ribnet, HackTT, F1RST, Microsoft Innovation Center in Trinidad, TeleCarib Labs in St Lucia, Computer and Tech Expo in Trinidad, Revolution 3D Printing, TechLink Barbados, Hike Transport, Carnival GPS and Chune. What are some that you can think of? What are some tech projects in the Caribbean that you wish was still here?

All this talk about defunct tech projects is making me think about the Tamana Park in Trinidad. Can we revive this project before it is too late? I have been trying to get the powers that be to answer some questions but without result so far. In project management there is a lessons learned process where we identify, document, analyse, store and retrieve lessons. There are no failures and only lessons to be learned. We should not expect all projects to be a success. There might be good reasons to shutter a project. The important thing is that we are learning and become better than before. Then share what we learn with others.

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