In our June 2022 Community Chat, and with members of the Caribbean tech community, Lateefah Smellie and Dr Lyndell St. Ville, the panel discusses: Tech communities, a potent vehicle for developing tech talent in the Caribbean; and Silicon island, creating and coordinating the right environment to nurture a technology culture for the Caribbean.
This episode is also available on SoundCloud, Apple iTunes, Google Play Music, Spotify, Amazon Music and on Stitcher!
The Caribbean region is awash with problems and challenges for which solutions are needed. Over the past decade or so, there have been efforts to foster innovation to not only solve those problems, but also as an avenue for wealth creation for citizens and country alike.
In the regional tech space, several conversations are being had about what is required to more assuredly create the enabling environment for innovation to thrive, and to ensure that the proper culture is also nurtured. The debate continues, and although there have been glimmers of the potential of individual countries and what could be realised, the critical mass needed for a paradigm shift to occur has not yet happened in a Caribbean country or the region as a whole.
The above sets the stage for the discussions in this month’s Community Chat.
Introducing our guests and their topics
Lateefah Smellie is a student and software developer with a passion for service. She has over 7 years of experience leading community service and community-building initiatives. Currently, she serves as the Communications Officer of the Jamaican Developers Community, which seeks to grow and market the development skills of Jamaicans to create innovative tech solutions for Jamaica and the world at large.
Previously, she served on the leadership team for the Jamaica Youth Advocacy Network, AWS User Group Jamaica and the University of the West Indies Computing Society, where she re-established and strengthened the club’s relations with businesses in the Jamaican tech space. Her aim is to build as many bridges as possible to help those who seek to pursue a career in tech, find great opportunities and attain their fullest potential.
In being part of the Jamaican Developers Community, which has as part of its mandate to grow and market the development skills of its members, questions related to how tech communities can support the skills and continuing professional development of their members would be top of mind. She thus suggested that we discuss the topic, Tech Communities: A potent vehicle for developing tech talent in the Caribbean, cognisant that although there might be dozens of tech communities across the Caribbean region, they vary in effectiveness for the community they are trying to serve.
Dr Lyndell St Ville is the Owner/Chief Technology Officer at Datashore, which is based in Saint Lucia, and is a consultancy firm that offers services including, business intelligence and ICT policy development and design. He is also the Immediate Past President of the St Lucia ICT Association, and authors the Everyday Computing column for a local newspaper in Saint Lucia, which demystifies issues related to the use of technology
Lyndell has been mobilizing technology to enhance human interaction and development. He has closed innovation gaps by designing, developing, and strengthening systems in the public and private sectors. His ongoing work in Advanced Information Systems led to improvements in the resilience, reliability and tools used by organisations worldwide including Trent University (Canada) and the Ontario Court of Justice (Canada), the National Health Service (United Kingdom), the Ministry of Public Security (Guyana), and a variety of other local government, health and small business organisations.
Like many, Lyndell is convinced that the Caribbean region has what it takes to emulate the success of Silicon Valley, as a hotbed for tech innovation and the home of leading tech companies. He submitted the topic, Silicon island: creating and coordinating the right environment to nurture a technology culture for the Caribbean, which dovetails with Lateefah’s and allows us to have a more comprehensive discussion of Caribbean tech space.
We would love to hear from you!
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Also, if you or a member of your network is interested in joining us for an episode, do get in touch.
Let’s make it happen!
Select links
Below are links to some of the organisations and resources that either were mentioned during the episode or otherwise, might be useful:
- Lateefah Smellie
- Lyndell St Ville
- Jamaican Developers Community
- ICT Pulse article, 4 key steps Caribbean countries need to take to become technology and innovation hubs
- ICT Pulse Podcast episode, ICTP 202: Tech entrepreneurship in the Caribbean region
- ICT Pulse Podcast episode, ICTP 199: Fintech in the Caribbean, from a banking perspective
Images credit: L Smellie; L St Ville; Fauxels (Pexels); Canva Studio (Pexels); RODNAE Productions (Pexels)
Music credit: The Last Word (Oui Ma Chérie), by Andy Narrell
Podcast editing support: Mayra Bonilla Lopez
