Known as a playground for the rich, tourism and offshore financial services, not much more is really known about the Cayman Islands, especially with regard to telecoms and ICT. Dail Davis of Dart Enterprises, shares his knowledge of the Cayman Islands landscape, both in terms if telecoms and ICT space, and business environment there.
This episode is also available in Apple iTunes, Google Play Music and on Stitcher!
The Cayman Islands is a well-known tourist destination, and a playground for the rich. It is also famous, and even arguably notorious, for offshore banking, and consequently international business and financial services. However, outside if the movies and the occasional soundbite, not much more is really known about the Cayman Islands. Hence, in this instalment of our ‘Know Your Neighbours’ series, our country of focus will be the Cayman Islands.
It is a multi-island state comprising three islands: Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac and Little Cayman, and it is still a British Overseas Territory. Collectively, the three islands cover an area of 264-square kilometres (or about 102 square miles), and has a population of around 66,000.
Due to the strength of its economy, the Cayman Islands has one of the highest per capita Gross National Incomes and Gross Domestic Products in the Caribbean, which in turn can be an indicator of its development, relative to other countries in the region. However, in relation to telecoms and ICT, that might not necessarily be the case, as previous episodes in our Know Your Neighbours series have highlighted.
Introducing our guest
Dail Davis is the Manager IT Infrastructure Services at Dart Enterprises, in the Cayman Islands. Dart Enterprises comprises a portfolio of companies, which span a broad range of industries including real estate, hospitality, retail, entertainment, finance and biotech. Although born in Jamaica, Dail has lived in Cayman virtually all of his life. He has over 20 years’ experience in telecoms, having worked his way up through the ranks, from a Junior Technician to Regional Enterprise Solutions Architect.
However, Dail’s background did not start in telecoms, but surprisingly, pharmaceutical engineering and nutritional supplement development and formulation. However, as an avid ‘tinkerer’ and capitalising on the opportunities in telecoms, he later earned an MSc in Information Technology, and has a penchant for ubiquitous computing and the Internet of Things (IoT).
Insight into our conversation
In calling the Cayman Islands home, and having worked extensively in telecoms and ICT, Dail is able to share an intimate understanding of and perspective on the country, with regard to not only technical matters, but also living and working there. Hence, some of the questions we posed to Dail during the course of our conversation included the following:
- Can you give us a quick overview of the Cayman Islands ?
- With regard to telecoms and ICT, how developed is it in the Cayman Islands ? How robust is the competition in the market?
- How accessible are those services?
- Is telecoms and ICT services affordable in the Cayman Islands ?
- In your opinion, to what degree is the Government and private sector in the Cayman Islands leveraging ICT?
- What is it like being an entrepreneur in the Cayman Islands?
- If someone outside the Cayman Islands wants to do business in the Cayman Islands, what are key steps that you would recommend?
- What are some of the tech-related or tech business related-trends you are seeing in the Cayman Islands?
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: Wikimedia Commons; Needpix; D Davis
Music credit: Ray Holman
