Amon Sa­ba Saakana

The In­ter­net and re­lat­ed tech­nolo­gies play an in­creas­ing­ly sig­nif­i­cant role in the de­vel­op­ment of the Caribbean.

Yet, as coun­tries in the re­gion make nec­es­sary in­vest­ments in in­for­ma­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tions tech­nolo­gies (ICTs), there is a re­al risk that we may be un­wit­ting­ly ced­ing con­trol of crit­i­cal el­e­ments of our tech­no­log­i­cal and in­tel­lec­tu­al se­cu­ri­ty. In so do­ing, we may be miss­ing out on a sig­nif­i­cant op­por­tu­ni­ty to take a lead­ing role in the dig­i­tal econ­o­my and sur­ren­der­ing our place in the emerg­ing knowl­edge-based so­ci­ety. If this tra­jec­to­ry is main­tained, cur­rent ad hoc, in­su­lar ap­proach­es to pol­i­cy for­mu­la­tion, col­lab­o­ra­tion, ed­u­ca­tion re­form and ICT adop­tion can lead the Caribbean in­to an era of what can be termed "cy­ber coloni­sa­tion."

Signs of cy­ber coloni­sa­tion

If coloni­sa­tion is the process of es­tab­lish­ing con­trol over a coun­try by a more pow­er­ful and of­ten dis­tant coun­try, then cy­ber coloni­sa­tion can be de­scribed as sub­ju­ga­tion of coun­try or so­ci­ety by a tech­no­log­i­cal­ly more ca­pa­ble coun­try by ex­tend­ing the mech­a­nisms for con­sump­tion but with­hold­ing pow­er of cre­ation.

It is im­por­tant to note, that un­like coloni­sa­tion of the past, cy­ber coloni­sa­tion is not di­rect­ly im­posed, but rather it is be­ing em­braced, typ­i­cal­ly through ig­no­rance, lethar­gy or un­in­formed lead­er­ship ac­tion.

The signs are al­ready emerg­ing around us.

1. In­ter­net pen­e­tra­tion rates are in­creas­ing across the re­gion, but with­out a com­men­su­rate in­crease in the cre­ation of in­dige­nous con­tent or ser­vices.

2. Smart­phones, like the Black­ber­ry, iPhone and An­droid de­vices, are en­joy­ing wide­spread pop­u­lar­i­ty, but re­gion­al soft­ware de­vel­op­ers are yet to reg­is­ter their mark in the bur­geon­ing mo­bile econ­o­my.

3. Con­sumers are in­creas­ing­ly com­fort­able with on­line shop­ping, but over­whelm­ing ob­sta­cles in the fi­nan­cial ser­vices sec­tor and reg­u­la­to­ry en­vi­ron­ment make it eas­i­er to shop on Ama­zon.com and eBay.com than to trans­act with Caribbean busi­ness­es.

4. Com­pa­nies and gov­ern­ments are plan­ning moves to 'cloud com­put­ing,' but the 'clouds' ex­ist in North Amer­i­ca and Eu­rope.

5. Me­dia pro­gram­ming that makes it eas­i­er to find out what hap­pens in San Fran­cis­co or New York than Do­mini­ca, Montser­rat or even To­ba­go.

Crit­i­cal In­ter­net in­fra­struc­ture

Be­hind these are fun­da­men­tal is­sues such as the ab­sence of crit­i­cal In­ter­net in­fra­struc­ture like In­ter­net ex­change points; de­fi­cien­cies in the reg­u­la­to­ry en­vi­ron­ment; out­dat­ed leg­is­la­tion; un­der-in­formed tech­nocrats and con­sumers with an in­creas­ing ap­petite for for­eign goods, ser­vices and ex­per­tise. These fac­tors all point to a clear and present Caribbean cri­sis. How­ev­er, as the Chi­nese proverb goes: cri­sis is an op­por­tu­ni­ty rid­ing the dan­ger­ous wind. In re­al­i­ty, the po­ten­tial to over­come these chal­lenges and take ad­van­tage of the dig­i­tal rev­o­lu­tion ex­ists to­day. What we face is more a chal­lenge of par­a­digm than of tech­ni­cal pos­si­bil­i­ty. The op­por­tu­ni­ty be­fore us is to de­fine and ar­tic­u­late a clear set of ac­tion­able pri­or­i­ties. These must be based on our na­tive strengths and shaped to match our vi­sion for de­vel­op­ment.

Em­pha­sis on en­light­ened lead­er­ship

The un­der­ly­ing fac­tors that cur­rent­ly hin­der de­vel­op­ment and that, ul­ti­mate­ly, can ob­vi­ate the in­evitabil­i­ty of cy­ber coloni­sa­tion, in­clude en­light­ened lead­er­ship, co­her­ent vi­sion, col­lab­o­ra­tive ap­proach­es, fa­cil­i­ta­tive reg­u­la­tion, rel­e­vant ed­u­ca­tion sys­tems, mod­ernised pol­i­cy frame­works, tai­lored in­vest­ment sys­tems and in­dige­nous in­no­va­tion. What is re­quired is a com­bi­na­tion of strate­gic and prac­ti­cal mech­a­nisms for in­te­grat­ing peo­ples and sys­tems through ICTs. There­fore, if the re­gion has to de­fine prac­ti­cal so­lu­tions, lead­ers and cit­i­zens must first ask what kind of so­ci­ety are we seek­ing to pro­duce, be­fore treat­ing with what kind of tech­nol­o­gy are need­ed. Fur­ther, the pro­mo­tion of sys­temic, ev­i­dence-based in­tel­li­gence is a pre-req­ui­site to pro­vid­ing an ac­cu­rate con­text for any de­vel­op­ment road map and a prac­ti­cal tool for gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy and reg­u­la­to­ry pri­or­i­ties. To­geth­er, these cre­ate new points of syn­er­gy na­tion­al­ly and re­gion­al­ly. A mul­ti­fac­eted ap­proach is the on­ly way to ef­fec­tive­ly re­spond to the threat of "re-coloni­sa­tion."

Rid­ing the dan­ger­ous wind

Ob­vi­ous­ly, the task is nei­ther straight­for­ward nor is it with­out sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges. How­ev­er, it is achiev­able. We can de­fine for our so­ci­eties an at­tain­able vi­sion for a pre­ferred fu­ture. A fu­ture char­ac­terised not by de­pen­den­cy, but by a strong pro­jec­tion of our val­ues, iden­ti­ty and cre­ative ca­pac­i­ty. In prac­ti­cal terms, this means that if we say we are af­ter knowl­edge-based so­ci­eties, we should be able to find the ev­i­dence of this in the con­struct and out­put of the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem; the tenor and con­tent of the me­dia; and the poli­cies, in­vest­ments and prac­tices in the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors. Fur­ther, if we say we are af­ter di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion of the econ­o­my and pro­mo­tion of in­no­va­tion and en­tre­pre­neuri­al­ism, we should be able to iden­ti­fy poli­cies, pro­cure­ment prac­tices, leg­is­la­tion, re­search and ini­tia­tives that sup­port this. If we say we want to take our place in the dig­i­tal age, then we must in­vest and trust in our hu­man cap­i­tal. We must al­so build the in­fra­struc­ture nec­es­sary to sup­port and sus­tain our am­bi­tions. What­ev­er the sce­nario, the ev­i­dence should be ob­serv­able and con­sis­tent with the kind of so­ci­ety we say we want to build.

Bevil Wood­ing is an in­ter­na­tion­al strate­gist, in­no­va­tor

and tech­nol­o­gy am­bas­sador.

Fol­low on Twit­ter: @bevil­wood­ing and Face­book:

face­book.com/bevil­wood­ing