Belize to host sixth CaribNOG Regional Meeting

The Caribbean Network Operators Group, (CaribNOG) will stage its sixth regional meeting in Belize in September.

CaribNOG is a not-for-profit, independent, technical community that provides a regional forum for building technical capacity and promoting relevant solutions for advancing network engineering in the Caribbean.

CaribNOG coordinator Bevil Wooding described the group as a unique forum for regional technology professionals to share experiences and build practical skills. He said CaribNOG events draw industry experts from across the region and international technical community, thus allowing regional participants to benefit from the expertise of some of the top minds in the global industry.

“One of the main goals of the volunteer-based group is to build a vibrant regional community of technical experts committed to designing, building and supporting the technology infrastructure needed to take the region into the future,” Wooding stated.

“At CaribNOG 6 regional technology practitioners will have the opportunity to share experiences and participate in hands-on technical workshops in areas including advanced routing and network design techniques, computer network security, Internet Exchange Point design and management, IPv6 Deployment, and DNS security and management.”

CaribNOG is supported by grants and volunteer assistance from regional and international organizations including the Caribbean Telecommunications Union (CTU), Packet Clearing House, the American Registry for Assigned Names and Numbers (ARIN), the Internet Society (ISOC), LACNIC, the BrightPath Foundation, and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

Caribbean Needs More Local Digital Content Online

Producing more local digital content remains one of the most effective means of increasing internet penetration in any market. Local content production can also create significant opportunities and positively impact both social and economic development.

This was the view expressed by Rhea Yaw Ching, corporate vice president sales and marketing at Columbus Communications, at the BrightPath Foundation Youth TechCamp in Trinidad.

“As the volume of local content increases, the Internet becomes more relevant and has a greater impact on improving the lives of local communities,” said Yaw Ching.

“While people in the Caribbean consume a significant amount of content produced outside its borders, they also want to interact with their news, their music, their images, their accents and even their issues in cyberspace.”

She described local digital content as any community’s locally generated, owned and adapted knowledge and experience, packaged and presented online.

In the Caribbean, people are embracing the broadband revolution and using the Internet to connect socially and exchange knowledge in completely new and exciting ways.  But relative to the amount of foreign content available, there remains a dearth of local content online.

“As the cost of broadband falls and more people go online, deliberate steps have to be taken to ensure that they are presented with appropriate local content,” Yaw Ching said.

Columbus has been on a programme to engage digital content developers across the region. The regional telecommunications provider recently partnered with BrightPath Foundation, an international technology education non-profit organization, as part of its thrust to help promote training and education in digital content creation.

“We believe that by supporting training and education in the creation of digital content, more people will see the social and economic value in shifting from content consumers to content producers.”

However, the challenge facing the region is how to migrate the wealth of content from the offline to the online world.

“If the Caribbean is to move online en masse, it needs to be provided with reasons to go there,” Yaw Ching stated. “This involves helping more people understand the business case as well as the social value of creating new digital outlets for their content.”

She added that Columbus is actively collaborating with content providers across the region to find new ways to accelerate the process of publishing more local content online.

“Whether in stories, pictures, online videos, local services or mobile apps, we can move from being a region of content consumers. We have the capacity and motivation to create content that gives our people more reason to get online and seize the opportunities of the Internet economy.”

CXC to record first-ever video-based syllabus orientation

The Caribbean Examination Council (CXC) will make history in Grenada this week with the recording of its first-ever completely video-based syllabus orientation.

The recording is being done for the launch of CXC’s CAPE Digital Media Syllabus and will be facilitated by BrightPath Foundation, a Trinidad-based technology education non-profit. A team of teachers, CXC officers and volunteer digital media specialists will be working together to produce the orientation video.

Telecommunications provider, Columbus Communications has made its CC6 Community Station studio resources available to CXC for the occasion. Rhea Yaw Ching, corporate vice president sales and marketing at Columbus said, “Columbus has been working closely with CXC and BrightPath to ensure the success of this important initiative. A Digital Media Syllabus is an important inclusion in the Caribbean curriculum, and it also supports our large corporate objective of enabling learning through technology.”

A team of teachers, CXC officers and volunteer digital media specialists will be working together to produce the orientation video. Telecommunications provider, Columbus Communications, has made its CC6 Community Station studio resources available to CXC for the occasion. CXC provides primary, secondary and post-secondary examinations and other education services for Caribbean countries.

Registrar and chief executive officer Dr Didacus Jules said the region’s education system needs to be updated to produce graduates with the requisite technology-based skills.

“Emphasis will be placed on project work and active participation to ensure that students have opportunity to develop both practical skills and a solid understanding of how digital media is applied in real-world scenarios,” Bevil Wooding, Congress WBN’s Chief Knowledge Officer and Executive Director of BrightPath Foundation, is coordinating the activity in Grenada.

He explained that the newness of the subject matter has meant that CXC had to turn to technology to accelerate the syllabus roll-out process. A special Accelerated CAPE Digital Media Implementation Strategy has been developed in collaboration with the CXC’s civil-society partner Congress WBN, a Trinidad-based international non-profit organisation.

“We wanted to ensure the same principles and tools highlighted in the Digital Media syllabus were reflected in the approach to implementation,” Wooding said.

In addition to the syllabus orientation video, Wooding and his BrightPath team of volunteers are putting together Caribbean-centric reference texts, digital and physical teaching aids targeted at teachers, students and parents.  Alice Thomas-Martin, a teacher from St Benedict’s College in San Fernando and one of the educators selected by CXC to help create the syllabus, is in Grenada for the recording.

“Using digital means to introduce CAPE Digital Media is a perfect way to kick of this new syllabus. This is truly a step in the right direction. I feel privileged to be part of this milestone moment in Caribbean education. I am excited about introducing this subject to my students. The subject material lends itself to very practical and 'hands on' activities which will make the teaching and learning process very student-centered.”

She added, “The majority of my students are 'digital natives' having grown up surrounded by technology. I know they will be most excited when this launches in September. CXC is exploring the possibility of applying the approach taken for the Digital Media Syllabus other subject areas.