Montserrat is a Caribbean country many people really don’t think about. However, it has been quietly plodding away developing its telecoms and ICT environment; and according to our guest, Dr. the Honourable Samuel Joseph, the Deputy Premier and is the Minister for Communications, Works, Energy and Labour in Montserrat, the country will soon become a leading nation in the Caribbean region.

 

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Welcome to another episode in our ‘Know Your Neighbours’ series. Today, the country we will be exploring is Montserrat. Also known as the Emerald Isle, Montserrat is located in the northern Lesser Antilles – northwest of Guadeloupe, southwest of Antigua and southeast of Saint Kitts and Nevis. Montserrat is only 102 km2 (39 sq mi), and currently has a population of less than 5,000 people.

Many of us became familiar with Montserrat in 1995, when the then dormant Soufrière Hills volcano erupted, destroying the capital city Plymouth, and precipitated the mass emigration of more than half of the country’s population. Today, the capital is now located in Brades, and the remaining population lives on less than half of the island. The other half – in around the active zone of the volcano – has been restricted.

In essentially having to rebuild its economy, whilst having such a small population, might suggest that telecoms and ICT in Montserrat is particularly challenged. However, the country is being guided by a National ICT Policy, Strategy and Implementation Plan, which is currently in its second round of implementation, and which has identified to five focus areas: Environment, Learning, Access, Virtual, Adoption. In having such a cogent framework, which should be effective until 2021, the country may be poised to make tremendous strides in telecoms and ICT, which effectively, could result in accelerated economic and social development.

 

Introducing our guest

Dr. the Honourable Samuel Joseph is the Deputy Premier and is the Minister for Communications, Works, Energy and Labour in Montserrat, and has been in representation politics 2014. He holds a PhD in Physics from Baylor University in the United States, and prior to representational politics, was an educator.

Minister Joseph has been a keen advocate for Montserratians to invest in the development of ICT skills and businesses in Montserrat. He was one of the Founders of Lavabits, Montserrat’s first software development company; was a member of the National ICT Committee; and was a teacher and mentor to the business start-up, Dropkik Developers.

Minister Joseph was appointed Deputy Premier and Minister of Communications, Works, Energy, and Labour in November 2019.

 

Select interview questions

Although Montserrat is quite a small country, there was a lot to discuss with Minister Joseph, with respect to the country’s ICT and telecoms space. Below are main questions posed during the course of our conversation:

  1. Can you give us a quick overview of Montserrat?
  2. With regard to telecoms and ICT, how developed is it in Montserrat ?
  3. Are telecommunications and ICT services affordable in Montserrat? How is the quality of broadband service?
  4. In your opinion, to what degree is the Government and private sector in Montserrat leveraging ICT?
  5. What has been the impact of COVID-19 on telecoms and ICT in Montserrat?
  6. Montserrat has a National ICT Policy, Strategy and Implementation Plan. What were some of the key successes achieved under than ICT framework?
  7. What is it like being an entrepreneur in Montserrat ? What do you think about the country’s start-up environment/ start-up culture?
  8. If someone outside Montserrat wants to do business in Montserrat, what advice would you give?
  9. What are some of the tech-related or tech business-related trends you are seeing in the Montserrat ?
  10. What are some of the ICT/tech-related opportunities you see in Montserrat ?

 

We would love to hear from you!

Do leave us a comment either here beneath this article, or on our Facebook or LinkedIn pages, or via Twitter, @ICTPulse.

 

Select links

Below are links to some of the organisations and resources that either were mentioned during the episode, or otherwise, might be useful:

 

 

Image credits:  S Joseph;  jorono (Pixabay), Wikimedia Commons, Wikimedia Commons

Music credit:  Ray Holman

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