In the August 2021 Community Chat, and with members of the Caribbean tech community, Genelle Lake and Chad Fraser, the panel discusses: Is the Caribbean taking full advantage of the real opportunities presented by the technology revolution; and social media and cyber security – navigating the risks.

 

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

Once again, it is time for our monthly community chat. As per usual, we have an interesting mix of ICT-related topics that are relevant to the Caribbean region: leveraging technology; and cybersecurity, which seemed to have emerged either from the direct experiences of our guest panellists, and/or observations they have made based on the circles in which the they operate.

Leveraging technology and cybersecurity are not new topics to the Podcast. Last week’s episode was another instalment of our Expert insights series on cybersecurity, and business and technology are regular subjects in our Community Chats. But this month, the angle from which our guests wish to tackle the topics they submitted seems new. However, before we jump into the discussion, allow us to introduce our guests.

 

Introducing our guests and their topics

Genelle Lake

Genelle Lake is an Information Security Analyst at the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB). She has a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science and a Master of Science degree in Information Systems Management. She is also a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP). Her work at ECCB involves planning, implementing and monitoring information security measures to maintain and improve the Bank’s information security posture, managing the lifecycle of technology risk, ensuring adherence to technology controls and reporting on all aspects of Information Security matters.

Like so many of us, Genelle has several friends and associates who use and enjoy using social media. Unfortunately, some of them have been victims of breaches and other incidents of their social media accounts, which  precipitated her submission of the topic, Social media and cyber security – Navigating the risks. Social media incidents are increasing, but are not necessarily reported, and neither do the victims know what recourse might be available; hence the opportunity was taken to highlight the issue, and to provide some preliminary advice.

Chad Fraser

Chad Fraser is an entrepreneur at heart. With over 15 years of experience in the Information Technology industry, his profession spans ICT solutions development, research and advisory, business process reengineering, digital transformation consultation, IT Strategy, governance and quality assurance. After a brief stint as a teacher and in paid employment, Chad started his entrepreneurship journey by establishing Sonover Inc, a Grenada based software company that partners with organisations regionally and Internationally to facilitate their planning, design, development and implementation of digital transformation initiatives. Thereafter, he established Qualishore a Business Process Outsourcing provider that emphasises the use of technology in its offerings.

As a tech business owner, Chad is acutely aware of how technology is being leveraged in the public and private sector. Frequently, the emphasis still tends to be on infrastructure and devices, and not so much on the opportunities. Hence Chad’s topic was Is the Caribbean taking full advantage of the real opportunities presented by the technology revolution?, since to a considerable degree, there does not yet appear to be the mind shift across Caribbean societies on identifying and leveraging those opportunities.

 

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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: G Lake; C Fraser; Gerd Altmann (Pixabay); Blogtrepreneur (flickr)

Music credit: Ray Holman

Podcast editing support: Mayra Bonilla Lopez