In our July 2024 Community Chat, and with members of the Caribbean tech community, Tessa Drayton, a Brand Communication and Reputation Management Specialist based in Trinidad and Tobago, and Rodney Browne, the Founder of eCaribbean Limited in Saint Kitts and Nevis, the panel discusses:  With increasing tech-related regulation, how can organisations better manage risk?  In an age of technology and AI is the Admin Assistant role becoming obsolete?  And, the role of technology in disaster preparedness, mitigation and response.

 

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

In today’s rapidly evolving technological landscape, organisations and wider society face a broad range of challenges and opportunities. Technology is causing us to reexamine longstanding roles and paradigms and to varying degrees, the implications of those changes. It may not necessarily be a question of whether the changes are good or bad, but more so an opportunity to recognise and understand those changes, and even to see whether it might be possible to maximise the benefits whilst minimising the undesired consequences.

The above provides some context for our July 2024 Community Chat episode. However, do allow us to introduce our guests and thereafter, we will share the topics discussed.

 

Introducing our guests

Tessa Drayton

Tessa Drayton is a Communications Professional and Entrepreneur based in Trinidad and Tobago. With a strong foundation in Public Relations, she has honed her expertise through academic pursuits at the University of the West Indies, UWI-Roytec, and the Institute of Strategic Risk Management (ISRM). Her qualifications encompass Communication Studies, Management, and Corporate Risk and Crisis Management.

In 2020, Tessa embarked on her entrepreneurial journey by founding TND Communications. Driven by a passion for empowering businesses globally, she transformed the agency into a platform for crafting compelling brand narratives and safeguarding reputations. Overcoming initial challenges, Tessa leveraged her skills to help clients authentically convey their brand values.

TND Communications is a strategic communications agency specialising in creating impactful stories that resonate with audiences worldwide. With a focus on brand reputation management, the agency employs a comprehensive approach to connect businesses with their target market. Tessa’s team brings over five years of experience delivering exceptional marketing and communications solutions across various industries.

Tessa’s expertise in crisis management, reputation management, and customer service, coupled with her certification in Corporate Risk & Crisis Management, has been instrumental in guiding clients through complex challenges. Her contributions to the region have been recognised through features in prominent publications such as Authority Magazine, Thrive Global, and the Trinidad Guardian.

Rodney Browne

Rodney Browne has over 20 years of experience in the digital and web media industries. He created a number of ground-breaking applications between 1999 and 2005, including Caribbean Greetings, the first comprehensive online greeting card service for the Caribbean, Caribbean Buffet, a restaurant and events directory, and Caribbean Massive, a social media website with such features as a forum, blog, friends list, group, photo management and much more.

Currently, Rodney is the Founder and the Managing Director of eCaribbean Limited, which is based in Saint Kitts and Nevis, and is one of the largest web firms in the Eastern Caribbean and was launched in 2005. He is passionate about entrepreneurship, innovation, education and art, and has contributed his time and resources towards the advancement of these areas nationally and regionally.

 

Introducing our topics

First, organisations are vulnerable to a broad range of internal and external threats. From a tech perspective, we have seen increased instances of network breaches, data loss, theft, and infrastructure damage, to name a few. However, with governments worldwide are enacting stricter tech-related regulations, organisations must adapt to a complex regulatory environment. Hence increasingly, organisations must ensure that they have proper systems and procedures in place to limit their risk and exposure. We thus kicked off our discussion with the topic, With increasing tech-related regulation, how can organisations better manage risk?

Second, with Large Language Models, such as ChatGPT being so popular, many roles and functions in organisations are evolving. Junior and support positions, such as the Office Clerk, Administrative Assistant or Secretary might be even more under threat, as many of their tasks such as creating documents and presentations, preparing meeting agendas, minutes and reports, scheduling appointments, and maintaining files, to name a few, can be done using robotics and AI. Hence, our second topic was, In an age of technology and AI, is the Admin Assistant role becoming obsolete?

Finally, and from all indications, the 2024 North Atlantic Hurricane Season will be a very active one, as earlier in July, Hurricane Beryl left considerable devastation in her wake. The panel thus wrapped up the session by discussing, The role of technology in disaster preparedness, mitigation and response. Although we might have access to the most sophisticated technology, we questioned its effectiveness in our disaster preparation, mitigation and response efforts.

 

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: TND Communications; R Browne; WOKANDAPIX (Pixabay); Dibakar Roy (Pexels); Kohji Asakawa (Pixabay)

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

Podcast Editing Support: Mayra Bonilla Lopez