BrightPath hosts AppMaster Initiative in Grenada

With so much digital media consumption now taking place on mobile apps, it’s no surprise that many tech innovators are focusing not on desktop computers but on smaller, do-it-all, handheld devices. You could say small is the new big. The Eastern Caribbean island of Grenada is keen to join countries around the region in helping its youth participate in the lucrative global mobile-app industry. Thirty eager participants ranging from secondary students to civil servants and seasoned tech practitioners recently took part in BrightPath Foundation’s AppMaster mobile workshop, held as part of the country’s National ICT Week activities.

The AppMaster Workshop is specially designed by BrightPath, an international tech education non-profit organisation that encourage development and uptake of mobile apps in emerging markets like the Caribbean.

“I never thought I would be able to turn my ideas into mobile apps, until this workshop,” said 22-year-old Clevon Joseph, one of participants at the one-day workshop at the Grenada National Stadium in St Georges, last week.

"I have a whole new understanding of the app development process. It was an excellent workshop with great practical exercises," said Cherry-Ann Lewis, one of several young ladies taking part in the event.

The workshop targeted the country's tourism, agriculture, health and entertainment sectors as potential beneficiaries of a Caribbean mobile app development thrust.

“At a time when the region is looking for new ways to spur economic growth and sustainable development, encouraging innovation and creativity of youth is key,” said Bevil Wooding, Executive Director of BrightPath.

“Technology education provides a natural attraction point for the youth but by itself it is not enough. Training programs have to also impart a sense of mission and civic responsibility if they are to be effective in making a national and regional impact.”

The AppMaster mobile app development course was designed by BrightPath Foundation, an international tech education non-profit organisation, to encourage development and uptake of mobile apps in emerging markets like the Caribbean, according to Emmanuel Simon, a BrightPath volunteer facilitator. Simon, a Harvard-educated mobile app developer, is co-founder of Reela, a mobile commerce technology company based in New York.

At last week's workshop, Simon was busy helping the enthusiastic participants navigate the process of building customised apps that focused on solving specific local problems.

Makeva Lewis, a workshop participant said, “I didn’t realise app development could be so much fun. I have a much clearer picture of the importance of team work, and the role I can play. Doing the AppMaster training has made me really eager to find and solve problems from my own community!”

The ICT Week included a series of technology education and community outreach initiatives, held throughout the country over five days.

Eric Nurse, Grenada’s National ICT Coordinator, said, “This mobile application training has been the one of the most anticipated and engaging sessions at our ICT Week 2015 event. It has been amazing to witness the level of interaction between the facilitator and the participants. The BrightPath team’s practical approach and focus on identifying local opportunities really impacted the participants and made this workshop a success.”

Since its launch in 2012, BrightPath's AppMaster program has touched more than 800 participants in nine Caribbean countries. Directly addressing the challenges of the region and highlighting the local, regional and global opportunities available to Caribbean app developers, Wooding said, was key to the programme’s continued success.

“From the inception, there has been great participation in all our digital content creation programs. We have been working with the private sector and governments across the region to deliver training, facilitated by regional and international experts, that combines technical know-how with values-based principles. Participants often tell us that they feel more confident and empowered to start technology businesses or seek employment in the region’s growing IT industry.”

Over the coming months, BrightPath plans to host similar workshops in St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, Antigua and Barbuda, and St Vincent and the Grenadines.

In September, a regional App Development hackathon will give participants from across the Caribbean a forum to fully develop their mobile applications for presentation and distribution. Apps will tackle regional problems in education, health, tourism, culture, agriculture and civic services.

More information about the BrightPath AppMaster Initiative is available from BrightPath’s official website www.brightpathfoundation.org and on Twitter @brightpathorg.

This article was originally published on Trinidad and Tobago Guardian.

Saint Lucia to host CaribNOG 9

The picturesque Eastern Caribbean island of Saint Lucia will be the backdrop to the highly anticipated gathering of the men and women responsible for securing and administering computer networks across the Caribbean. From April 27 to May 1, the Caribbean Network Operators Group (CaribNOG) will hold their ninth regional meeting, a significant forum that has been a key role in coordinating and equipping the region’s technical community.

"CaribNOG plays a unique role in the region’s technology ecosystem. It is a volunteer-based community dedicated to strengthening the Caribbean indigenous capacity to address the rapidly evolving  technology landscape," explained Bevil Wooding, one of the CaribNOG founders and a main organiser of the event.

“Computer network engineers and technology specialists from across the region and around the world take the time to share their knowledge and experience with the colleagues at CaribNOG,” he added.

Founded in 2010, CaribNOG has been steadily building its reputation as the Caribbean’s most influential and solutions-oriented forum for network engineers and computer technology professionals. The group has also built strong connections with other Network Operator Groups from around the world, including Latin America, North America and as far as the Pacific.

“CaribNOG members benefit immensely from exposure to experts from around the region and across the globe,” says Jamaican-born Stephen Lee, another CaribNOG founding member and CEO of ArkiTechs Inc., a US-based technology firm.

“Topics range from protecting local networks from hackers and cyber-criminals to deploying broadband and the future of the Internet,” he added.

Network security, Internet exchange points, cloud computing and global network trends are among the topics to be addressed at CaribNOG’s 9th regional meeting.

“Saint Lucia is really looking forward to hosting this important meeting,” said Simon Alexander, local organiser and IT Manager at the Organisation for Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) Commission.

“The previous CaribNOG gathering in Curacao drew over 100 persons from more than 15 countries. The international nature of gathering affords us the opportunity to showcase Saint Lucia and the OECS   to the world as a significant technology-enabled destination.”

The CaribNOG 9 meeting is being co-hosted by the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), and is also supported by the regional and global Internet community, including the Amsterdam Internet Exchange (Ams-IX), the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN), the Caribbean Telecommunications Union, Columbus Communications, Google, the Latin American and Caribbean Internet Addresses Registry (LACNIC), the Internet Society, the Brazilian Network Information Center (NIC.br), ArkiTechs Inc, Akamai Inc., Microsoft and Packet Clearing House.

CaribNOG 9 will feature a slate of experts, including Arturo Servin (Google Inc.); Carlos Martínez and Alejandro Acosta (LACNIC); Bevil Wooding (PCH); Mark Kosters (ARIN); Claire Craig (UWI); Albert Daniels (ICANN); Shernon Osepa (ISOC); Steve Spence and Stephen Lee (Arkitechs).

This ninth event comes on the heels of 2014 meetings in Dominica and Curacao.

More information is available on the official event website.

This article was originally published on Trinidad and Tobago Guardian.

Beyond the Digital Divide: Developing regional capacity to deliver local content

By 2016, one per cent of the world’s population will own more than half of its wealth. The staggering projection, from a recent study by anti-poverty group Oxfam, made headlines just as the World Economic Forum (WEF) was getting started in Davos last month. One concern for secretary general of the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO) Professor Tim Unwin, who was at the WEF, is that the rapid spread of information and communications technologies is not helping to reduce that growing gap between poor and rich.

“The difference between the least developed and the most developed in getting greater. In that way, you can say that ICTs are actually increasing inequality,” he said, in a telephone interview from the annual gathering of top political and business leaders in Switzerland.

As head of a body bringing together perspectives of telecoms stakeholders from across the 53 countries of the Commonwealth—about one-third of the world’s population—Unwin is deeply concerned about that growing digital divide, and the dual impact of technology development on the world’s poorest.

Developing Caribbean capacity

“One of the things that always strikes me when I visit the Caribbean is how much more advanced and successful and connected it is than many other parts of the Commonwealth,” he said.

While the islands’ size is a source of some economic challenges, it also provides some advantages.

“The islands are relatively small, so it is not so problematic to get universal connectivity, as compared with, say, Nigeria or Pakistan,” Unwin said.

But Internet access and connectivity alone won’t reduce the gap between poor and rich. For Unwin, the real priority is not simply to increase the quantity of Internet users but to improve the overall quality of Internet usage. Two major issues affecting quality, he said, are bandwidth and cost, which is where Internet service providers and industry regulators play such a critical role in the region’s Internet eco-system.

“What you can do with large bandwidth compared with low bandwidth is incredibly different, particulary with the rapid increase in applications that use video and large amounts of data. And the second variable is cost. That’s where regulators play a crucial role in helping to ensure that markets operate as effectively as possible.”

Delivering Caribbean content The point of developing local capacity, Unwin was quick to point out, is to deliver local content. The potential of the underlying technology is only realised if it is used to facilitate the delivery of other services, such as digital banking, online education, mobile health or e-government. But that is easier said than done.

“Content development is quite expensive and resources aren’t always put into that. It’s much easier to lay a bit of fibre than it is to develop the content that is going to go over it,” said Unwin, who also sits on the advisory board of the m-Powering Development Initiative of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

One obstacle to developing local content, he said, is the lack of functional relationships between government ministries or even ministerial departments, which would need to harmonise their operations in order to produce high-quality local content.

So significant is the difficulty involved in developing relevant local content that there is a great temptation to simply import content from abroad, and sidestep the growing pains of building local capacity. But shortcuts are dangerous, Unwin said, citing the example of MOOCs, or massively open online courses, which are web-based courses aimed at unlimited participation through open access.

“I’d like to challenge some of those who think that things like MOOCs are the solution for the education of small-island states. I completely disagree because MOOCs can be a form of cultural or intellectual imperialism. The fact that people can get access to courses from richer countries is problematic, to me. What we want to have is locally developed, locally produced content, that is indigenous to users in Caribbean countries.”

The challenge for Caribbean societies, therefore, is to define and produce content that is appropriate and relevant, to enable solutions that align with development priorities. “You have to make sure you have the right content in the right formats for the right people. If you’re just importing content from outside, you’re not building the knowledge-base of your own countries.”

Beyond the divide

One of the CTO’s key partners in helping the region to face up to this challenge is the Caribbean Telecommunications Union (CTU). The two work together on policy development, and have collaborated closely at significant international gatherings, including meetings held by the International Telecommunication Union.

“We believe, as does the CTU, in the real importance of avoiding duplication and overlap. One of the things we respect about the CTU is their openness to working collaboratively,” Unwin said. The CTU was established in 1989 by the heads of Caricom governments, to support its members in leveraging telecommunications for social and economic development. Unwin explained the importance of the CTO in helping the CTU pursue that mission in a globalised environment.

“Across the world, there are different regional telecommunications unions, sometimes working in isolation and therefore unable to learn from each other. So, what’s happening in Africa may not be known in Asia. Or what’s happening in the Caribbean may not be as well known to people in the Pacific. One of the things that the CTO can do is bring together perspectives from people from many different parts of the Commonwealth, so that together we can do far more than any one of us could do by ourselves.”

Several Caribbean ministers were among 30 official delegates from across the Commonwealth who signed an agreement outlining shared principles for the development of broadband, at the CTO’s first-ever Commonwealth ICT Ministers in London in March of last year. The CTO is working with the Organisation of American States and the CTU to help Caribbean states seeking to take that commitment forward, Unwin said.

At one upcoming workshop, organised in partnership with the Antigua and Barbuda government, Unwin will focus on how technology can help improve quality of life for people with disabilities. “Last time I was in Port-of-Spain,” he said, “we ran a workshop for young people on how they can use technology to build their entrepreneurial skills and contribute to the economy.”

Partnering with success Unwin returned to Trinidad this month as a feature speaker in the CTU’s 25th Anniversary ICT Week, which ran from February 2 to 6, at the Hyatt Regency hotel.

The event celebrated the achievements of CTU members and the contribution of strategic partnerships, like the one with the CTO, drawn from within and beyond the region. The last two days featured workshops organised in partnership with the Internet Society, the Latin American and Caribbean Internet Addresses Registry, the International Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers, the Organisation of American States, the University of the West Indies, The American Registry of Internet Numbers, Caricom Implementation Agency for Crime and Security and Arkitechs.

Among the highlights of the five-day event was the signing of new agreements between the CTU and the International Telecommunications Satellite Organisation and the ITU.

This article was originally published in the Trinidad and Tobago Guardian.