The telecommunications sector may be likened to a butterfly. Transformed through metamorphosis, it has changed into a social and economic enabler known today as information and communications technology (ICT), with the equipment to soar to new heights.
The ICT sector has transformed our lives via increased utilization of the Internet and, through competition and liberalization, has provided every citizen with a cellphone and entrenched universal access to basic telephone service.
Sadly, the vision of every household having robust broadband has not materialized and the digital divide of the communication poor and communication rich remains, perpetuating a social and economic imbalance that inhibits Barbadians from enjoying their maximum potential in business and social mobility.
Ahh. I forgot the promise by Columbus Communications, or Flow, to provide every household with fibre by the end of 2015 and the planned major investment in fibre by LIME. Promises and expectations.
Our regulatory agencies remain understaffed and underfunded, but this has not prevented civil servants with initiative and hard-working public officers from pressing on.
Thanks to a telecoms policy and regulatory harmonization project known as HIPCAR, Barbados has seized the opportunity to undertake several projects to update policy and legislation.
Projects such as the IT For Teens summer technology programme, sponsored by the Community Development Department and LIME, point us towards new opportunities to develop young entrepreneurs in the ICT sector.
There are a few more people developing mobile applications and there is little doubt, from my continuing journey, that though motivation and mentoring may be lacking, the ability to learn ICT principles quickly exists among our youth.
I have watched in amazement as teenagers quickly gain an understanding of merging video, text and audio but struggle to conceptualize how they may develop business opportunities from this acquired knowledge.
At the policy level we recognize the work done by the Fair Trading Commission but wonder whether additional resources, modern legislation and perhaps a new vision are needed to ensure the hard work of its staff is more applicable to our social and economic development and, importantly, communicated.
Document management and information security, so vital in a world of information and monetary theft on a large scale, remain woefully not addressed.
We continue to have key sectors understaffed and we recognize the benefits of private and public sector collaboration but fail to achieve either.
Progress and implementation in the ICT sector – either in the form of broadband build-out, creating more opportunities for our young people in areas such as mobile applications, social media and software development, or attracting new investment in medical and other fields – require a bit more vision and, certainly, the agility of the butterfly.
• Hallam Hope is a marketing and information and communications technology consultant.
