Flow of words

Trinidad and Tobago Internet Governance Forum is a yearly event that brings together persons interested in discussing topics related to our use of the internet. Every year since 2018 I religiously tune in and make notes so that I can share on my blog. These are my takeaways from the different panel discussions. These are paraphrased in my words. DIGITALIZATION – The Multistakeholder Approach The pandemic is forcing us to advance the digital agenda locally Digital transformation is a group effort, we all have our part to play When going digital, a shared vision is important Good communications is pivotal to team work and multistakeholder approach Time to spend the money and just do it but how to decide what to spend on Our education system is not working for us Transformation is more than automation and putting things online, process reengineering is needed Cybersecurity in the New Norm Online is here to stay and we cannot decide to stay away as a way of dealing with online threats Outd...

EmployTT was a category at the inaugural HackTT competition in 2019. A team of developers from UTT came first in that category. iGovTT has since developed EmployTT and hopefully this new EmployTT website fares better than the shuttered GHRS and website which functioned in the same space. We knew it was coming and May last year I asked them to get more info about it. Jan 18 2021 iGovTT put a coming soon on their socials which piqued my interest and I was ready to test it out and blog about it. Only today I saw the website was launched at https://employtt.gov.tt/ The ad says, easy, convenient and secure. I question the quality assurance on this one as there was lorem ipsum text on the about page at time of launch. Notifications from the system are not encrypted and says smtp10.gov.tt did not encrypt this message. The website provides very basic functionality. I applaud them for getting started and I am really hoping for improvements over time. With feedback from us and them being open to...

What is TTWiFi? This is a government project to provide free internet access in public places. This is linked to reducing the digital divide in Trinidad and Tobago. It is currently available at some transport hubs and some libraries. You can get more info from their website at http://www.ttwifi.gov.tt/ . This website does not use https encryption which is not a good first impression to me. When I did a Twitter search I saw that TTWifi is also the name of a virus. Just something to keep in mind and makes me wonder if there was another name that could have been chosen. One of the places I like to see free WiFi is on public transport since that is some free time available. There is a project between PTSC and bmobile to provide wifi on the buses and some maxi taxis have WiFi. The major issue I see with these is the reliability, reach and upkeep. Flow has their customer hotspots that I have used successfully in Chaguanas around Mid Center Mall on some occasions. I remember feeling excited a...

I should be writing more on this blog and when I thought about it this morning, I asked myself, am I a good writer? What makes a good writer and do I need to be a good writer? I can be a savvy writer but then suppose my content is not readable by the average person. My writing is an expression of me and in a style that is mines and that is something I do not want changed. I am not writing enough for this blog. I started off writing blog posts consistently and it was looking good but then I slowed down. When I think about it, I come to the conclusion that I am thinking too much and trying too hard when I just need to write. Let it flow, enjoy writing and let it be a fun experience. So what if the blog post is not put together and banging, once I am writing and having fun. The more I write, the better I would get anyway. The other thing is motivation. If you are reading this then leave a comment to let me know that you are reading. Then there are no other local tech bloggers that I know....

My internet has been down this morning and has been coming briefly at minimal speeds. Saw a media release from TATT that regional subsea fiber optic damage had occurred. On twitter there were numerous complains for all the ISPs including mobile data. On one facebook forum the event was described as a webpocalypse. I did a speedtest at 1027am to Miami from my Flow connection and got 0.18 Mbps. Before I figured out the extent of the outage, I was thinking about adding a 1 day data plan and I am glad I did not waste my money. Internet has become so much a part of our lives now that an outage like this gets in our feels. I will update this blog as this situation progresses. I read a news report that repairs may not be completed until Thursday DEC 10, 2020. Update - A release I got directly from TATT states as follows The Telecommunications Authority of Trinidad and Tobago (TATT) wishes to advise that Internet connectivity to several service providers has been disrupted.  This is an isl...

Somehow I managed upon Action Kid on youtube and I am now a big fan. I love exploring and walking and that is what he does. Scenes from New York remind me of my year of living and working in New York. Before that year I had spent a summer interning at Goldman Sachs on wall street. I also spent my first university Christmas break at a friends family in Brooklyn. What I love about New York is the diversity of people and places. An amazing melting pot of peoples from all over the world. For the summer internship I stayed at one of the NYU dorms in Manhattan and for the year I lived on Schermahorn St. in Brooklyn Heights. A small studio close to the train station, Brooklyn Heights promenade and a cinema and many other conveniences. It's been more than 17 years now and much of my memories are faded. The one thing I don't miss is the depressing winter weather. The things I remember are the bike rides across the Brooklyn bridge, trips to Central Park, ferry rides to Staten Island and ...

What is digital transformation? To me, digital transformation means using technology to improve or transform the way things are done. Why change? Because of the problems, issues, pain points, however you choose to describe these, with how things are currently working. Why technology? Because technology has proven to be an enabler of transformation in the past and in other jurisdictions. When I Google "why technology transformation" one of the top results was this article, Digital Transformation Is Not About Technology . What I took from this was that technology is just the enabler. Technology is just the tool. We have to do a lot of non technology work to bring about digital transformation. One of the things the article pointed to was having the right mindset and practices. So while we put things online and digitise records we should be reviewing the data that is captured, the workflows involved and the reasons for being. Transformations can be hard work and then there are no...