In our June 2025 Community Chat, and with members of the Caribbean tech community, print and web journalist, Mylène Colmar  of Guadeloupe, and Simone Passmore, the Chief Executive Officer of Webstylze in Barbados, the panel discusses: whether AI is signalling the end of Caribbean blogs; the AI dilemma of mitigating the risks and maximising the good; and the changing social media landscape.

 

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

Welcome to our June 2025 Community Chat podcast episode. Once again, we seem to have three dissimilar topics with little common ground among them. However, that is not entirely true.

All three topics explore how technological advancements are transforming how content is created, shared, and consumed. Further, and perhaps more importantly, in each case, we are given an opportunity to consider the impact of technology, the changes it has been driving, and our ability to not only keep up but also to continue to make informed decisions.

 

Introducing our guests

Mylène Colmar

A print and web journalist since 2008, Mylène Colmar has also been an editorial consultant since 2012. After several years as a freelancer, she created Plume Caraïbe, a writing and editorial consulting agency to bring media projects (magazines, guides, reports, websites, etc.) to fruition with relevant and informative content. She has been recognised for her writing and Caribbean address book, enabling her to work with major companies, groups, and entrepreneurs.

With Jessica Brudey, an entrepreneur from Guadeloupe, Mylène co-founded The Flamboyant Agency, a publishing house that publishes Foodîles, a magazine entirely dedicated to food, and cookbooks. They also launched Foodîles Agency, a company in charge of their lab, catering activities, events, and the rental of mobile kitchens and additional equipment.

A blogger since 2007 and passionate about her region, the Greater Caribbean, Mylène has been writing about Caribbean players and issues on her blog (Le Blog de Mylène Colmar, www.mylenecolmar.com) since 2015. She has also created a monthly newsletter, sent free of charge to nearly 800 subscribers, and is very active on social network X, with her @Mycho account having nearly 10,000 followers.

Simone Pasmore

Simone Pasmore is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Webstylze, a web and mobile applications development firm, based in Barbados, that helps companies save operating expenses and increase revenue targets, through business automation and integrating AI algorithms to achieve the best business opportunities. She is a software engineer with a Master of Science degree in Computer Science from Florida Atlantic University, and during her studies, she conducted her thesis research in Argentina, focusing on web accessibility for the hearing impaired.

An esteemed member of the International Webmasters Association and a Google-certified professional, Simone is deeply committed to web accessibility and inclusivity. She has studied sign language and conducted extensive research on web accessibility for the hearing-impaired. With over 15 years of experience working across various industries including Telecommunications, Manufacturing, NGO’s, Retail, Medical, Education, Conglomerates, and Corporate Services, Simone’s areas of expertise include data science, artificial intelligence (AI), web development, and app development, to name a few.

 

This month’s Community Chat topics

Over the past several months, we have all heard reports or testimonies about the impact AI has been having in the marketing and content development space: to generate articles, social media posts, create images, and even short video clips. Further, over the past 10 to 15 years, we have seen several Caribbean blogs come and go, with just a handful still publishing posts consistently. We thus launched our discussion with the topic, “With AI, is this the end of Caribbean blogs?”

Our second topic was also AI-focused, but as the title suggests, “The AI Dilemma: Mitigating the Risks, Maximising the Good”, the scope of the discussion was much wider, ranging from good governance and facilitating greater social good. Essentially, there has been a sense that we all, including organisations, have been caught up in the euphoria around AI, and are trying to find more ways to integrate AI into our lives and operations without fully considering the risks. However, the topic suggests that we ought to be adopting a more balanced or circumspect approach to AI, but how can that be achieved?

Our final topic has not been discussed in quite some time, but has become increasingly important across both our work and professional lives: social media. Over the past 10 years, social media has changed. Some may argue for the better; others for the worse, but there is no disputing that the platforms of the past and the experiences we had back in the day are not the same today. We thus rounded out this month’s Community with a discussion of “The changing social media landscape”.

 

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 were mentioned during the episode, or otherwise might be useful

 

 

Images credit:  S Passmore;  M Colmar;  DC Studio (Freepik); Werner Moser (Pixabay);  Freepik

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

Podcast editing support: Mayra Bonilla Lopez