Continuing with our ‘Know your neighbours’ series, and with Dr Lyndell St Ville, the President of the ICT Association of Saint Lucia, we are exploring the ICT/technology and tech entrepreneurship space in Saint Lucia, along with its strengths, challenges and opportunities.

 

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

Welcome back to the podcast, and our ‘Know your neighbours’ series! In this episode, the focus will be on the picturesque island of Saint Lucia, in the Eastern Caribbean.

Saint Lucia, a former British colony which is also considered a Francophone country, is located in the Lesser Antilles, or Eastern Caribbean, south of Martinique and north of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. It is approximately 617 square kilometres (238 square miles), and has a population of around 180,000.

Like most Caribbean countries, historically, Saint Lucia’s economy was built on agriculture. However, from around the 1990s, it transitioned to services, especially tourism, which accounts for over 80% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Saint Lucia is one of the five countries that falls under the Eastern Caribbean Telecommunications Authority (ECTEL) umbrella; the others being Saint Kitts and Nevis, Dominica, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Grenada. It is also home to the ECTEL headquarters, as well as the secretariat for Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States.

Dr Lyndell St Ville

Dr Lyndell St Ville is the President of the ICT Association of Saint Lucia. He has nearly 25 years’ experience in the ICT field, and currently is the Owner/Chief Technology Officer at Datashore, a consultancy firm that offers services including, business intelligence and ICT policy development and design. Lyndell also writes regularly on ICT and technology for The Voice newspaper in Saint Lucia.

In keeping with our ‘Know your neighbours’ series, we are exploring the ICT/tech space in Saint Lucia, along with the entrepreneurship and business culture there. Additionally, we will be sharing some insights on ICT-related trends and opportunities that are evident there. Hence, in our conversation with Lyndell, some of the questions we posed included the following:

  1. Can you give us a quick overview of Saint Lucia?
  2. With regard to telecommunications and ICT, how developed is it in Saint Lucia? Are services affordable?
  3. With regard to the GINet Wi-Fi project, is it a good thing?
  4. To what degree is the Government and private sector in Saint Lucia leveraging ICT?
  5. Why was the ICT Association of Saint Lucia established, and what does it hopes to achieve?
  6. What is it like being an entrepreneur in Saint Lucia? How is the country’s start-up environment/ start-up culture?
  7. What are some of the pain points likely to be experienced when doing business in Saint Lucia?
  8. If someone outside Saint Lucia wants to do business in Saint Lucia, what key steps would be recommended?
  9. What are some of the tech-related or tech business related-trends that can be observed in Saint Lucia?
  10. What are some of the strengths of the ICT/tech space in Saint Lucia?
  11. What are some of the challenges Saint Lucia might have to address to improve ICT there?
  12. What are some of the ICT/tech-related opportunities that Lyndell sees in Saint Lucia?

 

We would love to hear your thoughts!

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:  L St Ville, Wikipedia;  UWICLUBS.com;  Jolyne D (Pixabay);  Wikimedia Commons 

Music credit:  Ray Holman

 

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