Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by this author are their own and do not represent the official position of the Barbados Today Inc.
by Hallam Hope
It’s time for a technology reset if the Caribbean is to survive and prosper beyond COVID-19.
With more than 30 000 persons out of work in Barbados as a result of the ongoing pandemic, as individuals, as business leaders or business start-ups, as a government, we can
no longer adopt the current piecemeal approach to a national technology policy.
Not if we are serious about personal and economic survival.
In 2008 I joined the HIPCAR board, a three million Euro project, to modernise Caribbean telecommunications policies with follow-up work for countries with specific needs.
This was followed with Barbados having a 2010- 2015 national Information and Communication Technology Policy which suffered from an absence of implementation.
Today that documents has gathered dust and is irrelevant in an age where technology development and opportunity are moving quickly and policy at the individual, business and national level has to be visionary and move at tremendous pace.
There is a need for a holistic technology policy and ongoing implementation that recognises the world is moving from a Centralised set of processes and structures, including financial structures such as commercial banks, to a hybrid and increasingly Decentralised model that must include Blockchain and crypto currency.
Online services are changing dramatically in terms of transactions as well as Decentralised services. So banking services no longer are only offered by a commercial bank. Lending the same thing. There are new services such as Staking where you earn far more than via a traditional bank.
We no longer have only an insurance company to get insurance from. So there are new professional services which equate to new professional career and job opportunities.
Bitcoin, contrary to the Governor of the Bank of England, has become accepted as money, as a store of wealth, albeit a risk, as a way to diversify one’s investment, as a means of trading and as the backbone for new goods and services a budding entrepreneur may offer.
At the government level a living, modern technology policy, offers any Caribbean government, an opportunity to diversify from a single economic base such as tourism. New jobs for young people mean with or without government policy the individual or business can diversity their options.
We are talking from eight to 10 year-olds being given the requisite education and hands-on training.
We are specifically talking about Blockchain, Bitcoin the technology, Bitcoin the crypto currency, Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Augmented Reality.
We are talking about the individual becoming a bank and offering banking and other services.
We are talking new products for a global market. New services.
The Blockchain was created at the time of the 2008 global financial crisis to get individuals and countries out of a global financial mess that has been made worse by COVID-19 and the global printing of money and the prospect of deflation followed by a surge in inflation globally.
Survival in its any forms is tied to new technology planning at the individual level, the business level and the government level.
It requires an education policy reset as Education has been based on outdated CXC texts and Centralised thinking, and a shift to a Decentralised way of life.
The Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB), in moving to start a pilot project to create a digital Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) dollar, stated there were inherent constraints in banking, including cost and delays.
Decentralisation removes intermediaries and addresses five objectives: Speed in transactions, significantly reduced cost, enhanced security, including Cybercrime, enhanced privacy for the individual and business and financial independence.
A reset in technology thinking and action is therefore required at the individual level, the business level and the government policy levels.
Heaven help us it we don’t move to a reset.
Hallam Hope is a longstanding student of communications technology and a technology educator. The opinions expressed are his own and do not constitute financial advice. Personal research is recommended.
