In our January 2024 Community Chat, and with members of the Caribbean tech community, Esmeralda Levens of BearingPoint Caribbean in Curaçao, and Technology Architect and Digital Transformation Consultant, Garfield Gordon, of Jamaica, the panel discusses:  e-commerce in the Caribbean; the resilience of our internet infrastructure; and the Caribbean brain drain in the remote work era.

 

This episode is also available on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music!!

If you regularly read the headlines of the happening in the Caribbean tech space, you are likely to be genuinely impressed by the developments that have been occurring. However, this progress can overshadow several issues that have persisted for years, and even decades. Moreover, although technology, and especially the internet, usually offers solutions, or at the very least, minimises the challenges being experienced, in some instances, it can make the difficulties more pronounced and, in many instances, more difficult to address.

In this our first Community Chat for 2024, our conversation focuses on the internet: both directly, as a service that has become integral to our lives, and indirectly, to enable other services or a type of work-life many of us would like to foster.

One of the themes that seemed to be a common thread throughout our conversation is the changes in our attitude and behaviour over the years, which to some degree is reflected in how we perceive and leverage the internet in our daily lives.

 

Introducing our guests

Esmeralda Levens is a global citizen who grew up in Suriname, pursued her higher education in Mathematics and Computer Science in the USA, was subsequently employed in the Netherlands, and since 2001 has been a resident of Curaçao. The common thread in her career has been the increase in business process efficiency mediated by technology, software, and data. She has done this by leading small and large teams in million-dollar projects in a wide range of industries and in various cultural settings, varying from the airline industry, sports betting, telecommunications, emergency and disaster management, financial industry, tax administrations, and social security organisations.

Besides being an IT professional, Esmeralda has also been a regular guest lecturer at the University of Curaçao in IT-related courses, Mathematics, and Statistics. In January 2020, Esmeralda joined BearingPoint Caribbean. She is Associate Director and Business Unit Manager of Product Design. BearingPoint Caribbean enables Caribbean Islands to increase tax and contributions compliance through a digital transformation of public services. 

Garfield Gordon is a multi-disciplinary Technology Architect and Digital Transformation Consultant having over 30 years of diverse IT experience including software development, field engineering, enterprise architecture, systems engineering, cybersecurity, training and management in Jamaica, the Caribbean, Canada and the United States of America. He has extensive knowledge in: start-ups, medium to large enterprises, independent software vendors (ISV), value-added resellers (VAR), aviation, real estate, financial services, business process outsourcing, managed services; telecommunications and other vertical markets.

After spending 12 years at Cisco Systems Incorporated, he continues to focus on diverse projects in: business transformation; architectural and technical solutions; cyber-security; data protection; and IoT with engagements across Governments, Service Providers, Large Enterprises and Small to Medium Businesses throughout the Caribbean and the Americas.

 

The topics discussed

The impetus for our first topic, e-Commerce in the Caribbean, was an article published on SiliconCaribe in which the author, Ingrid Riley, related her experience of ordering from Amazon and having it delivered directly to her home in Jamaica. No doubt, ordering goods from online shops overseas is nearly 30 years old in the region, but having them delivered to one’s home is a new development, which could be signalling the continued evolution of e-commerce and online shopping, and consequently, raising questions about the continued viability – and even the survival of – the retail sector in the Caribbean region.

Our second topic, The resilience of our internet infrastructure, is an issue to which we continually return thanks to the natural disasters we routinely face. Hence, both the public and private sectors tend to appreciate the need for disaster preparedness and recovery plans and business continuity plans. However, how prepared are we if a prolonged global shutdown of all electrical and digital infrastructure were to occur, a phenomenon that could happen in mid-2025? We discuss.

And our last topic, The Caribbean brain drain in the remote work era, we revisit a longstanding challenge of the region: the loss of our best and brightest individuals to opportunities outside of the region. There are opportunities and risks that need to be navigated, especially in a globally connected, remote work-friendly environment, hence the topic is also considered it within the context of the remote work construct, which is more accepted than it used to be.

 

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.

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:

 

 

Images credit:  E Levens;  G Gordon; Oleksandr P (Pexels); justynafaliszek (Pixabay); rawpixel.com (Freepik)

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

Podcast editing support: Mayra Bonilla Lopez