TTC­SI NA­TION­AL SER­VICES WEEK 2011-ROUND­TABLE ON CLOUD COM­PUT­ING

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Coali­tion of Ser­vices In­dus­tries (TTC­SI) staged its "Na­tion­al Ser­vices Week" for the third con­sec­u­tive year. This event was de­signed to bring in­to fo­cus the sig­nif­i­cance and im­por­tance of the ser­vices sec­tor to the lo­cal econ­o­my. The theme of this week of ac­tiv­i­ties was Stay­ing Ahead of the Curve.

One of the high­lights of this week of events was the host­ing of a round­table en­ti­tled, "CLOUD VI­SION-Us­ing Cloud Com­put­ing as a Busi­ness Ad­van­tage" held on Thurs­day at the Hilton Trinidad. The TTC­SI part­nered with its mem­ber, the In­for­ma­tion & Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Tech­nol­o­gy So­ci­ety (ICTS) to al­low for a dis­cus­sion be­tween par­tic­i­pants and rep­re­sen­ta­tives from IBM and oth­er lead­ing ICT com­pa­nies. The sem­i­nar was di­rect­ed to peo­ple from the ICT sec­tor. Min­is­ter of Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy and Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion Fazal Karim at­tend­ed the round­table and de­liv­ered the fea­ture ad­dress.

In­for­ma­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tion tech­nolo­gies; con­nect­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go to the In­ter­na­tion­al are­na, and build­ing a new econ­o­my have all been ear­marked as na­tion­al pil­lars for sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment. We as a Gov­ern­ment tru­ly be­lieve that these pil­lars pro­vide the cat­a­lyst for trans­for­ma­tion-trans­form­ing the way we gov­ern, the way we do busi­ness and by ex­ten­sion the way we live. In an ef­fort to mit­i­gate the risks and the chal­lenges posed by the cur­rent glob­al eco­nom­ic at­mos­phere, all busi­ness­es-lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al-are rac­ing to find so­lu­tions in an ever com­pet­i­tive mar­ket. In the same man­ner, all gov­ern­ments are work­ing to spend more wise­ly and max­imise re­sources while at the same time im­prov­ing ser­vices to cit­i­zens in ways that are ef­fec­tive and ef­fi­cient. There­fore, the theme-Stay­ing Ahead of the Curve-is not a lux­u­ry state­ment that busi­ness­es can choose to ig­nore. It is an ab­solute ne­ces­si­ty if we are to suc­ceed in this glob­al econ­o­my. We are all re­quired to be game chang­ers.

It is this ne­ces­si­ty that is guid­ing the de­vel­op­ment and roll-out of shared ICT in­fra­struc­ture and e-Ser­vices for the Gov­ern­ment of Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go (GoRTT). Our ap­proach is bent on de­liv­er­ing both quick-wins and sus­tain­able im­ple­men­ta­tion. The re-po­si­tion­ing of iGovTT to the Min­istry of Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy and Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion in Ju­ly, was this Gov­ern­ment's most re­spon­sive step to­wards stream­lin­ing the ICT agen­da. We are mov­ing to en­sure that all min­istries and gov­ern­ment agen­cies col­lab­o­rate with the Na­tion­al ICT Com­pa­ny-iGovTT-to de­rive syn­er­gies from a holis­tic per­spec­tive through the use of shared ICT plat­forms and ser­vices ben­e­fit­ing Gov­ern­ment, busi­ness and our cit­i­zen­ry.

We ex­pect such shared ser­vices and plat­forms will en­sure sig­nif­i­cant long term cost-sav­ings, in­creased trans­paren­cy, greater con­ve­nience and ef­fi­cien­cy, and greater ef­fec­tive­ness through ICT con­sol­i­da­tion and economies of scale. We have al­ready em­barked on an ag­gres­sive de­vel­op­ment pro­gramme in this sec­tor. Through a process of con­sul­ta­tion with you, our stake­hold­ers, we have agreed that by the sec­ond quar­ter of 2012, we would de­vel­op:

• A new Na­tion­al ICT Strat­e­gy 2012-2017

• And a three-year ICT Ac­tion Plan

(Last year, we com­plet­ed con­sul­ta­tions in both Trinidad and To­ba­go for a Na­tion­al Pol­i­cy for Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion, TVET & Life­long Learn­ing which is now a White Pa­per hav­ing been laid in the Par­lia­ment. Lat­er this month, we will en­gage in con­sul­ta­tions on is­sues re­lat­ing to the Gate Pro­gramme).

• In April, we passed the Elec­tron­ic Trans­ac­tions Act hav­ing been un­der de­vel­op­ment for sev­er­al years. Sub­ject to Cab­i­net ap­proval we will soon pro­claim sec­tions of this crit­i­cal piece of leg­is­la­tion as we put the build­ing blocks for new e-ser­vices, in­clud­ing in­fra­struc­ture for au­then­ti­ca­tion and e-pay­ments, and cen­tralised da­ta hubs to pro­vide a com­mon source of trust­ed in­for­ma­tion for ac­cess by all gov­ern­ment agen­cies. This will be the main sup­port for the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the Sin­gle Elec­tron­ic Win­dow (Sew) by the end of this year. For decades we have been in a pa­per-based en­vi­ron­ment and this law will fur­ther pro­pel us in­to the knowl­edge-based econ­o­my.

• We have al­so be­gun the roll-out of video con­fer­enc­ing and Voice over IP sys­tems with­in all min­istries and agen­cies of the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go on a phased ap­proach.

• I have just re­turned from Sin­ga­pore where I had meet­ings with the In­fo­Comm De­vel­op­ment Agency (IDA) In­ter­na­tion­al and I wish to an­nounce by the end of this month, we should see the re­ac­ti­va­tion of the con­tract be­tween IDA In­ter­na­tion­al & iGovTT. This will al­low us to bet­ter lever­age Sin­ga­pore's ex­per­tise and knowl­edge in key ar­eas such as: Busi­ness process re-en­gi­neer­ing in the Pub­lic Sec­tor and ex­pan­sion of TT Con­nect ser­vices across Trinidad and with spe­cif­ic em­pha­sis on To­ba­go.

• With­in the ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion sec­tor, both UWI and UTT are look­ing at new link­ages and pro­grammes to fur­ther stim­u­late the ICT in­dus­try, to at­tract new in­vest­ments-com­pa­ra­ble to the pro­posed new tier three da­ta bank ear­marked for com­mence­ment of con­struc­tion in the first quar­ter of 2012, if not be­fore. All the in­sti­tu­tions with­in the min­istry have al­so sharp­ened fo­cus on the glob­al com­pet­i­tive­ness sur­vey and its im­por­tance for po­si­tion­ing T&T for for­eign di­rect in­vest­ment in the ICT sec­tor.

Ac­cord­ing to the Glob­al In­for­ma­tion Tech­nol­o­gy Re­ports of 2010-2011, Trinidad and To­ba­go im­proved its rank­ing in the fol­low­ing cat­e­gories:

• Govt pro­cure­ment of ad­vanced tech­nol­o­gy prod­ucts: From 117 in 2010 to 96 in 2011

• In­ter­net Ac­cess in Schools: From 72 in 2010 to 65 in 2011

• Ca­pac­i­ty for In­no­va­tion: From 133 in 2010 to 120 in 2011.

To fur­ther im­prove our rank­ings, I have been speak­ing to the roll out of the "Clos­ing the Dig­i­tal Gap Ini­tia­tive" which tar­gets, in the first in­stance, some 10,000 peo­ple for cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, many of whom may have nev­er had any form of IT cer­ti­fi­ca­tion be­fore.

• Work­ing with you, we will de­vel­op a Na­tion­al ICT Com­pe­ten­cy Frame­work, lever­ag­ing our in­fra­struc­ture, ac­cess, ed­u­ca­tion and train­ing for in­creased lev­el of ICT savvi­ness to the cit­i­zens.

• We will use the Work­force As­sess­ment Cen­tres, launched in May 2011, to guar­an­tee min­i­mum stan­dards of ICT com­pe­ten­cy for per­sons en­ter­ing the work force.

This first stage train­ing and as­sess­ment will be de­liv­ered through a com­bined ef­fort of all our agen­cies un­der the min­istry in­clud­ing Costaatt, UWI, UTT, YTEPP, NESC and MIC and will al­so in­clude the use of the Mo­bile Com­put­er Bus­es. iGovTT will play a key role in this as well.

Col­leagues, when we look at our his­to­ry we will re­mem­ber:

• It took ra­dio 38 years to reach a mar­ket au­di­ence of 50 mil­lion

• It took tele­vi­sion 13 years

• It took the In­ter­net four years

• The iPod three years and

• Face­book on­ly two years

This is just to say that we have to pre­pare for the 21st Cen­tu­ry learn­er, who will be ed­u­cat­ed more and more out­side the class­room than in the class­room. The min­istry will con­tin­ue to en­hance op­por­tu­ni­ties for Dis­tance Learn­ing and Life­long through:

• A ded­i­cat­ed node in T&T for the Caribbean Re­search and Ed­u­ca­tion Net­work. In 2012, we will com­mis­sion the op­er­a­tional struc­ture for this coun­try's own Na­tion­al Re­search and Ed­u­ca­tion Net­work.

• We will use this as a gate­way to con­nect our lo­cal in­sti­tu­tions to the glob­al pool of re­search and in­for­ma­tion.

• For life­long learn­ing with­in our homes and com­mu­ni­ties we in­tend to col­lab­o­rate with Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs and Com­mu­ni­ca­tion on re­brand­ing Chan­nel 4 in­to a knowl­edge tele­vi­sion. I speak of these ini­tia­tives as I re­port to you, and seek out your col­lab­o­ra­tion and sup­port as we con­tin­ue to build this in­dus­try.

Cloud com­put­ing

Let me now turn to one of the more crit­i­cal is­sues. The Min­is­ter of Fi­nance in his bud­get state­ment of 2012, re­ferred to the Gov­ern­ment's col­lab­o­ra­tion with the World Bank in prepar­ing a strate­gic map to roll out a na­tion­wide high-speed broad­band net­work with­in the next two years. This is just but one step in the cre­ation of a net­work cloud across T&T. Tagged as one of the Unit­ed Na­tions In­ter­net Gov­er­nance Fo­rum's Emerg­ing Is­sues for 2010, the Cloud Com­put­ing so­lu­tion has gar­nered a great deal of at­ten­tion, spec­u­la­tion and praise. It is the tech­no­log­i­cal "buzz phrase" of the mo­ment, on the lips of every­one from tech-evan­ge­lists to crit­ics-and the re­al­i­ty is that Cloud Com­put­ing has be­come a key fo­cal point in the in­ter­na­tion­al are­na-in fact, there has been a scram­ble to re­alise the ad­ver­tised ben­e­fits even in these chal­leng­ing times.

We would like Cloud Com­put­ing to pro­vide scal­able ICT ca­pa­bil­i­ties that can be of­fered as ser­vices over the In­ter­net in a pub­lic set­ting or pri­vate­ly through In­tranet fa­cil­i­ties. While we con­tin­ue to use tra­di­tion­al ap­proach­es in hav­ing in-house ICT in­stal­la­tions, we will tran­si­tion to Cloud com­put­ing fa­cil­i­ties which of­fer more ef­fi­cient and flex­i­ble lev­els of ser­vice. As a re­sult of Cloud Com­put­ing, many busi­ness­es can share pooled ICT re­sources. This tech­nol­o­gy will al­low for busi­ness­es to af­ford the large amounts of pro­cess­ing pow­er and da­ta stor­age that are need­ed to dri­ve to­day's busi­ness ob­jec­tives with­out the need for high cap­i­tal ex­pen­di­ture. It is hoped that de­vel­op­ments with­in the Cloud, and as we con­tin­ue to speak of clus­ter de­vel­op­ment, we can en­cour­age our young en­tre­pre­neurs to ex­pand the econ­o­my of Trinidad and To­ba­go out­side of the en­er­gy sec­tor.

This ser­vice avail­abil­i­ty of 24/7 across mul­ti­ple lo­ca­tions will sig­nif­i­cant­ly re­duce is­sues re­lat­ed to phys­i­cal com­mut­ing and al­lows em­ploy­ees and cus­tomers to ac­cess in­for­ma­tion, da­ta and ser­vices when­ev­er or wher­ev­er they may need it. As Trinidad and To­ba­go ranks amongst the num­ber one coun­tries in the world in mo­bile tele­phone pen­e­tra­tion, as stat­ed in the Glob­al In­for­ma­tion Tech­nol­o­gy Re­port col­lat­ed by the World Eco­nom­ic Fo­rum, this is clear­ly an op­por­tu­ni­ty for ex­ploita­tion in our lo­cal en­vi­ron­ment. Any net­work cloud in Trinidad and To­ba­go must take in­to con­sid­er­a­tion our mo­bile pen­e­tra­tion. Al­though the sta­tis­tics speak to more us­age of voice ser­vices, there is op­por­tu­ni­ty for an in­creased up­take of smart­phones and a mo­bile com­mu­ni­ty that in­cludes users of iPads and oth­er smart de­vices, which now pro­vide any­where, any­time ac­cess to da­ta ser­vices.

On­ly re­cent­ly, at the Teleios "Code Jam" com­pe­ti­tion-a lo­cal com­pe­ti­tion for ter­tiary lev­el stu­dents-where stu­dents were asked to build mo­bile apps, sev­er­al very in­no­v­a­tive apps were de­vel­oped. The top team from the UWI Com­put­ing So­ci­ety pre­sent­ed an SMS-based sys­tem for shar­ing in­for­ma­tion on an en­ter­tain­ment cat­a­logue, built and stored us­ing a data­base. The sec­ond-place team de­signed a mo­bile-ori­ent­ed web ap­pli­ca­tion to aid DJs in the gen­er­a­tion and se­lec­tion of songs for events where "par­ty-go­ers" are able to vote on songs via their mo­bile phones and the songs are or­dered by pop­u­lar­i­ty. The third-place team pro­posed a no­ti­fi­ca­tion sys­tem to in­form users about traf­fic con­di­tions at re­gions of in­ter­est and so as to be able to char­ter to their des­ti­na­tion in the short­est pos­si­ble time, and with the ul­ti­mate goal of al­le­vi­at­ing traf­fic con­ges­tion.

These are ini­tia­tives we as a min­istry and Gov­ern­ment ap­plaud and will con­tin­ue to pro­mote, en­cour­age, and thank the pri­vate sec­tor for your ef­forts in this area. It is im­por­tant that we fos­ter di­a­logue to find con­crete ways of har­ness­ing the op­por­tu­ni­ties that Cloud Com­put­ing presents. We must sus­tain the search for mech­a­nisms to al­low us as a coun­try and a re­gion to ben­e­fit from elas­tic­i­ty, scal­a­bil­i­ty and flex­i­ble pric­ing struc­tures. While Cloud Com­put­ing ser­vices are sim­ply based on the con­cepts of vir­tu­al­i­sa­tion, their im­pacts can be sig­nif­i­cant in de­vel­op­ing the re­gion through the sim­pli­fied use of ICT. We must con­sid­er and de­vel­op strate­gies to tack­le hard hit­ting is­sues of se­cu­ri­ty, pri­va­cy and da­ta pro­tec­tion while do­ing all we can to im­ple­ment poli­cies that are sus­tain­able and cost ef­fec­tive. We must be pi­o­neers in the re­gion.

In this re­gard, it is my plea­sure to an­nounce that Cab­i­net ear­li­er this year, took a de­ci­sion to ex­plore the tran­si­tion of all ap­pro­pri­ate soft­ware, in­fra­struc­ture and plat­forms to a Cloud-based en­vi­ron­ment, tak­ing in­to con­sid­er­a­tion the nec­es­sary se­cu­ri­ty, pri­va­cy, da­ta pro­tec­tion and da­ta sov­er­eign­ty is­sues. This is part of the na­tion­al di­rec­tion with re­gard to Cloud Com­put­ing, and in fact, the use of all ap­pro­pri­ate and rel­e­vant emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies with Gov­ern­ment tak­ing the lead as a mod­el user as far as it is pos­si­ble.

Dis­cus­sions are well ad­vanced with our key busi­ness part­ners to en­sure that this plan is im­ple­ment­ed with­in the com­ing fis­cal year, sub­ject to con­sul­ta­tions with­in the min­istries and agen­cies of the Gov­ern­ment. Ladies and gen­tle­men, as you are well aware, in Trinidad and To­ba­go, whether you are part of Gov­ern­ment, rep­re­sent­ing a busi­ness or a pri­vate cit­i­zen, none of us can af­ford to take the safe route or stay in one's com­fort zone. The times in which we live do not af­ford us this.