In this our final Community Chat and final episode for 2022, and with members of the Caribbean tech community, Carlton Samuels and Telojo (Telly) Valerie Onu, the panel discusses the ICT/technology trends and developments that were evident across the Caribbean region in 2022, and what might be in store in 2023.

 

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

The year 2022 started with a lot of promise. Individuals and countries alike were regaining their footing after nearly two years of uncertainty, lockdowns and curfews. There was thus a sense of making up for lost time or figuring out how to chart a new course.

To that end, and across the Caribbean region’s tech and ICT space, 2022 was an eventful year – not necessarily with only favourable situations. Fintech, particularly non-fungible tokens (NFTs) seemed to have been gaining more traction. Jamaica launched its digital currency and other countries that had done so earlier were trying to drive adoption. On the flip side, network intrusions, ransomware attacks, among other threats and incidents, appeared to be on the rise – or perhaps were increasingly being made public. However, these are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of ICT/tech happenings across the region.

But what is in store for us in 2023? This is our last Community Chat for the year, and so we are reflecting on the year in Caribbean tech that is fast coming to an end, and what might be in store for us in 2023

 

Introducing our guests

Telojo Valerie Onu

Telojo “Telly” Valerie Onu has been at the forefront of digital financial innovation and ecosystem building with over 20 years’ experience as a financial and impact innovator, digital economist and digital transformation expert. She is a thought leader and a co-author of The Insurtech Book and The Wealthtech Book.

She is currently the Head of Governance and Execution for the Bantu Blockchain Foundation, a Seychelles Foundation with offices in Lagos, Nigeria, which governs the Bantu Network Infrastructure. She is also the International Director of Governance and Compliance for the JD Euroway Finance Group (Private Banking), which is headquartered in Canada, and is also the Director of Governance and Compliance and a Transactions Specialist for JDE FINEX, a regulated institutional digital asset exchange and liquidity provider.

Telly is the Founder of Valerie Capital (formerly Beyond Capital Market), a digital financial market infrastructure (DFMI) and digital asset management firm focused on embedded and alternative finance.  She is also the Founder of Quintessence Consulting Inc, a global strategy and management consulting firm that has led multimillion-dollar investment facilitation and transformation projects and their implementation.

Carlton Samuels

Carlton Samuels heads Carlton Samuels and Associates and is an international consultant who specializes in areas such as technology in business strategy, ICT policy development, business process re-engineering and ICTs in education. He also does a considerable amount of work in the ICT4D, Internet Governance and Technology in Education spaces. He also teaches Information Science as an adjunct in the Department of Library and Information Studies, the Faculty of Humanities and Education at the UWI, Mona.

Carlton holds a Master’s degree in Management of Information Systems from George Mason University, a Bachelor of Science degree (Honours) in Natural Sciences from the University of the West Indies, and a Diploma in Corporate Strategy from the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is based in Jamaica.

 

Insights into our conversation

Carlton and Telly have both been part of our trends briefing episodes, and Telly was one of our guests for the 2021 briefing. So it was interesting to compare and contrast how 2022 actually evolved versus what was projected at the end of 2021. Key questions guiding our conversation included:

  • What were the year’s big ICT/tech issues in the Caribbean region?
  • Were there issues that gained more traction than they had anticipated, and were there ones that fell short of their expectations?
  • What ICT/tech issues will be big in the Caribbean region in 2022?
  • What issues should policymakers focus on addressing in 2023?

As much as fintech was big this year, Telly and Carlton raised a broad range of other issues to which we should also be giving our attention. One of the biggest is digital identity, which a crucial and fundamental to maximising the benefits of the digital currencies that have been launched across the region, as well as any meaningful push towards becoming a digital society. (Note that the importance of digital identity was extensively discussed in our conversation with Maria Daniel of the FinTech Association of Trinidad and Tobago.)

 

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.

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!

 

Below are links to some of the organisations and resources that either were mentioned during the episode or otherwise, might be useful:

 

 

Images credit:  T Onu;  C Samuels;  Nina Stock (Pixabay);  ar130405 (Pixabay);  Stephen Dawson (Unsplash)

Music credit: The Last Word (Oui Ma Chérie), by Andy Narrell

Podcast editing support:  Mayra Bonilla Lopez