MINISTER OF COMMERCE and Trade Senator Haynesley Benn is challenging private sector information communications technology (ICT) companies to come under one organization while pledging his intention to have public ICT companies work more closely together.
Speaking at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre, Two Mile Hill, St Michael, at the launch of the third Information Society of Barbados’ (ISB) conference Event Caribbean 2011 to be held in October, Benn said he wanted to see the ISB become an umbrella corporation.
“I’m looking forward to the day very shortly when this ISB is embraced as the umbrella organization for all private sector scientists and organizations . . . [and] I want that by October I can make the boast that all these high tech people are under the umbrella of the ISB,” he said.
Benn added he also wanted to see all the “fragmented” ICT organizations under Government to come together, adding that the National Council for Science and Technology (NCST) was the vehicle which could bring this could about.
In addition, the minister said the NCST would be undertaking a survey later this year to determine the extent of ICT use in the home, with particular focus on social media.
He also said ICT had to go beyond mundane uses and be involved in innovation, which was a part of Government’s National ICT Strategic Plan.
As for the conference, Sam Brathwaite, a member of the ISB conference planning committee, said the two-day event would take place at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre from October 25 under the theme ICT: A Catalyst For Economic Development.
He said the conference was not annual nor did it have regular times as the first one was in 1999 and the second in 2006.
“The purpose is to bring together local, regional and international people with interest in ICT to talk about how we can use ICT to advance national development,” he said. (CA)
