In this our November 2020 Community Chat, and with members of the Caribbean tech community, Tunde Mottley and Matthew Cowen, the panel discusses whether our size, complexity, lack of investment and poor data preclude the Caribbean region from truly innovative disruption in business, and are Caribbean countries confusing ‘smart’ with ‘digital’?

 

This episode is also available in Apple iTunes, Google Play Music and on Stitcher!

To a considerable degree, the 21st century is a great time in which to live. Technology has been a great equalizer – levelling the playing field, and opening up a broad range of opportunities for individuals to be innovative and to come up with disruptive ideas, which can lead to success in business, and even to wealth creation.

With regard to countries, there are broad range of opportunities to be had, and benefits to be realised, if they can truly become digital economies and information societies. However, the process to achieve those states are expensive and complicated. Hence they require considerable commitment and consistency, along with a systematic approach, in order achieve measurable progress. Unfortunately, many countries appear to lose their way on the tech path, and may not be entirely clear about exactly where they are going, and what exactly they want to achieve.

The above thoughts should begin to set some context for the topics that are discussed in what is likely to be our last Community Chat episode for 2020. However, before we hone in on the topics for this episode, let us meet our guest panellists.

 

Introducing our guest panellists

Tunde Mottley (on the left) is the Chief Executive Officer and Principal Consultant of Mottley Consulting Inc. (MCI), which is based in Barbados. MCI provides consulting services, project management, infrastructure solutions, and managed IT services to small and medium sized businesses, and to Caribbean governments.

Tunde has around 20 years’ experience in the telecoms and ICT field, having held a broad range of positions in regional international companies before he launched his own firm in 2014.

Matthew Cowen (on the right) is no stranger to the Podcast, having joined us on a few occasions over the years. Matthew is the Founder of dgtlfutures.com, a consulting firm that seeks to help small businesses across the Caribbean to develop and implement their Digital Transformation strategies. He is also the author of The Future is Digital newsletter, which is also now a podcast. 

Matthew more than 20 years’ experience in digital technologies. He has beenliving inMartinique for about 15 years, and is fluent in both English and French.

 

The topics discussed

First topic, “Does our size, complexity, lack of investment and poor data preclude the Caribbean from truly innovative disruption in business?”, was submitted by Matthew. Although the topic is mouthful, its impetus was observations Matthew had been making about the tremendous growth and success companies in larger and more populous countries have been enjoying compared to those here in the Caribbean.

In the region, we might have a total population of around 44 million, along with a large Diaspora population. However, we are not one single, cohesive country. There are multiple jurisdictions, multiple currencies, multiple languages and cultural differences, which it could be argued does not appear to augur well for successful innovation and entrepreneurship.

With regard to second topic, and In an unusual move, Tunde asked me to submit one instead. Luckily, and over the past few weeks, I had been thinking about the concept of smart city/smart island as a topic to explore more deeply on ICT Pulse.  However, in the early research I had done, I observed that the focus of the smart island/city initiatives by Caribbean countries appeared to be similar to what should be addressed in a national ICT plan. The typical concepts associated with a smart city project include the deployment of sensors, automation, and a more seamless integration of operations across a city. However, those concepts  do not appear to be part of the Caribbean conversation on being ’smart’. So, “Are Caribbean countries confusing ‘smart’ with ‘digital’?”

 

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: Ger Altmann (Pixabay); T Mottley; M Cowen

Music credit: Ray Holman