Whenever Haiti is in the news, some unfortunate event has occurred. Haiti is considered the poorest country in the Americas, and has experienced considerable adversity, due to political corruption, instability and natural disasters, to name a few. However, in the midst of such difficulties, the impact ICT is having on the country should not be overlooked. Max Larson Henry, of the ICT Association of Haiti (AHTIC), discusses the ICT/tech space in Haiti, the challenges, but also the opportunities that exist for those who are prepared to look beyond the headlines.

 

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Although a promising future was envisaged after gaining independence in 1804 – more than 150 years before the then British colonies of the Caribbean region began to seek theirs – Haiti has had a troubled past riddled with corruption, oppression and rebellion. Further, it considered one of the poorest countries in the Americas, and more recently, the country has been subject to a series of disasters, the most devastating of which were:

  • a magnitude-7.0 earthquake that occurred in January 2010, which reportedly left up 300,000 people dead and around 1.5 million homeless (Source: CNN)
  • a massive cholera outbreak due to cholera-infected waste from a United Nations peacekeeping station that contaminated the Arbonite, the country’s main river, which up to 2017, had resulted in over 9,600 deaths and over 800,000 people infected (Source: ReliefWeb)
  • Hurricane Matthew, in 2016, which resulted in the around 550 deaths, 175,000 people left homeless, but with around 2.1 million people affected, and causing an estimated USD 2.1 billion in damage (Sources: World Food Programme.

 

However, even in the midst of adversity, ICT has taken root in Haiti. Among other things, the country has its own internet Exchange Point (IXP), it manages its country code top level domain name (ccTLD), it is an active and visible participant in many global Internet Governance for a. Additionally, several initiatives have bene implemented locally, including the hosting of annual events to encourage tech innovation and entrepreneurship whilst building the capacity of the local tech community.

Max Larson Henry

Continuing with our “Know your neighbours’ series, our guest, Max Larson Henry, is one of the people who is shaping the ICT/technology landscape in Haiti. Max is the President of the ICT Association of Haiti (officially, Association Haïtienne pour le Développement des Technologies de l’Information et de la Communication (AHTIC)), and the CEO of Transversal, a tech firm based in Haiti. He is also Vice President of the Internet Society Chapter in Haiti, and Project Coordinator of the Latin America and Caribbean Network Information Centre (LACNIC).

Consistent with the episode title, and through our conversation with Max, we sought to understand ICT/tech space is like in Haiti. Areas covered in our discussion included:

  1. Basic statistic on telecoms and ICT are in Haiti
  2. How developed telecoms and ICT are in Haiti, and the extent to which the mobile/cellular and broadband Internet services, in particular, are accessible and affordable
  3. The business and start-up environment in Haiti
  4. Considerations and challenges in doing business in Haiti
  5. Tech-related or tech business related-trends in the Haiti
  6. Perceived benefits of the numerous tech-related events that are being held in Haiti
  7. Perceived strengths of the ICT/tech space in Haiti
  8. Perceived challenges Haiti might have to address to improve ICT there
  9. ICT/tech-related opportunities that could be leveraged in Haiti.

 

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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:  ML Henry

Music credit:  Ray Holman