ICT Week slated for March 19 to 23

The Government of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, in collaboration with the Caribbean Telecommunications Union (CTU), will host ICT Week from March 19 to 23, 2018. The theme for the Week is 21st Century Government. The main aim of the Week’s activities is to sensitize the population on the use of ICT as a lever for economic growth and development.

The main focus of ICT Week will be on emphasizing the steps that need to be taken by Caribbean Governments to accelerate the implementation of 21st Century Government, which is characterised as citizen-centric and utilizing technology for the seamless delivery of services to its citizens.

A major component of the ICT Week – Saint Vincent and the Grenadines is the ICT Roadshow. The ICT Roadshow-SVG, which is an initiative of the CTU, is a public awareness and education programme, designed to enable stakeholders to maximize the benefits of ICT.

Specifically, the Roadshow “demonstrates how technology can be used to transform society, by offering education, fostering innovation and encouraging regional governments to implement ICT effectively with regard to public services and governance.”

The ICT Roadshow-SVG will target students from the nation’s primary, secondary and tertiary educational institutions and is scheduled for Friday, March 23, commencing at 9 a.m.

It comprises a Primary School Forum – This segment of the ICT Roadshow-SVG will focus on teaching primary school students about coding/computer programming. Students selected from the nation’s primary schools will participate in the sessions, which will be held at various computer laboratories; Innovation and Entrepreneurship Forum – This segment will be held at the Kingstown Methodist Church Hall and is aimed at providing participants with information on some of the opportunities that are available to existing and potential entrepreneurs in ICT. The segment is scheduled to commence at 9 a.m.

There will be presentations by: the St Vincent and the Grenadines National Centre for Technological Innovation (SVGNCTI) on its current CARCIP funded Incubation and Training programme, as well as presentations from some of the incubatees currently enrolled in the programme; Apollo Knights, director of the National Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (NTRC). This presentation will focus on the NTRC’s annual I2 Competition; Felix Lewis, the general manager of the Centre of Enterprise Development, will chair the forum.

The Youth Forum will have two different sessions, geared towards the lower secondary, and upper secondary and tertiary students. The session targeting the lower secondary school students will focus on training in drones assembly and functions, while the session targeting upper secondary and tertiary students will feature a practical session on the Internet of things, as well as data analytics. The forum will be held at the Kingstown Methodist Church Conference Hall, and is scheduled to commence at 9 a.m.