BRADES-Montser­rat can lead the Caribbean in the de­vel­op­ment of ser­vice de­liv­ery to cit­i­zens with the use of ICT, Pre­mier Reuben T Meade has said. Speak­ing on the oc­ca­sion of the launch of the is­land's first na­tion­al ICT Day and the re­lease of its Na­tion­al ICT Strat­e­gy and Im­ple­men­ta­tion Plan, Meade said, "Green, Con­nect­ed, Thriv­ing: Montser­rat in a Dig­i­tal World" is the theme of the ICT Plan and the in­au­gur­al Na­tion­al ICT Day held in Sep­tem­ber at the Montser­rat Cul­tur­al Cen­tre.

Meade com­mend­ed the Ho­n­ourable Min­is­ter of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions & Works Charles Kirnon and his team who have worked over the past two years to de­vel­op the pol­i­cy, which out­lines a new strat­e­gy for pro­mot­ing the use of tech­nol­o­gy and the ways in which they can be used to en­hance ser­vice, ed­u­ca­tion and the eco­nom­ic en­vi­ron­ment of the is­land.

The Cab­i­net re­cent­ly ap­proved the mem­bers of the Na­tion­al ICT Coun­cil. They are: Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary in the Of­fice of the Pre­mier, Bev­er­ley Mendes; Ex­ec­u­tive Man­ag­er MI­CA, Clifton Ri­ley; Di­rec­tor DITES, Den­zil West; Di­rec­tor of In­for­ma­tion & Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, Ner­is­sa Gold­en; Com­mis­sion­er Fi­nan­cial Ser­vices Com­mis­sion, Dul­cie James; Busi­ness Com­mu­ni­ty, Dr Sam­my Joseph; Aca­d­e­m­ic Com­mu­ni­ty, Miss Grace­lyn Cas­sell; Di­as­po­ra Com­mu­ni­ty, Claude Hogan; Di­rec­tor ICT Sec­re­tari­at, Chair­man, Clau­dia Sker­ritt un­til sub­stan­tive ap­point­ment is made.

The five-year plan was de­signed by a na­tion­al ICT Steer­ing Com­mit­tee along with a team from the Caribbean Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Union (CTU), who were on hand for the un­veil­ing. Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al of the CTU Ms Bernadette Lewis said she was very proud of the steps that Montser­rat had been tak­en to ad­vanced their vi­sion to be a more con­nect­ed and in­no­v­a­tive na­tion.

"Montser­rat is a mod­el for the rest of the re­gion and we are very pleased that we have been a part of this process," Lewis said at the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny. The ICT plan ar­tic­u­lates the vi­sion, poli­cies, strate­gies, pro­grammes and projects for short to medi­um term, ICT-en­abled na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment. Cleve­land Thomas of the In­ter­na­tion­al Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Union (ITU) said not too many na­tions in the Caribbean have an ICT Plan.

He com­mend­ed the min­istry and the CTU for de­sign­ing a pol­i­cy that was both prac­ti­cal and vi­sion­ary and pledged the sup­port of his or­gan­i­sa­tion to see the man­i­fes­ta­tion of it over the com­ing years.

The cab­i­net re­cent­ly ap­proved the of­fer from Pack­et Clear­ing House (PCH) to place a Do­main Name Sys­tem root serv­er (DNS) on Montser­rat. PCH rep­re­sen­ta­tive Bevil Wood­ing said hav­ing the serv­er lo­cat­ed on is­land, which is of­fered free of cost, would help to strength­en Montser­rat's In­ter­net In­fra­struc­ture and re­move un­nec­es­sary pres­sure on their frag­ile sys­tem.

Wood­ing al­so called for Montser­rat as well as the re­gion to fo­cus more on cre­at­ing its own in­no­v­a­tive so­lu­tions to prob­lems as sim­ply copy­ing what was be­ing done in Eu­rope, Sin­ga­pore or the Unit­ed States would not work. "We can't keep look­ing to the usu­al sus­pects for sal­va­tion. The Caribbean has to cre­ate their own best prac­tices as our sit­u­a­tions are unique.

They do not have the chal­lenge of fig­ur­ing out how to pro­vide in­ter­net ser­vice to a pop­u­la­tion of less than 5000 and to do it ef­fec­tive­ly and af­ford­able." PCH, the CTU and the In­ter­net Cor­po­ra­tion for As­signed Names and Num­bers (ICANN) are work­ing col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly to in­stall root servers in Caribbean coun­tries with the ap­pro­pri­ate fa­cil­i­ties.

Oth­er speak­ers dur­ing the day were John Cur­ran of the Amer­i­can Reg­istry for In­ter­net Num­bers (ARIN); the Ho­n­ourable At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Es­co Hen­ry; the Di­rec­tor of the De­part­ment for In­for­ma­tion Tech­nol­o­gy and eGov­ern­ment Ser­vices (DITES) and Hans Fer­min of FORTINET, Inc, a net­work se­cu­ri­ty firm. The ex­ec­u­tive sum­ma­ry of the Na­tion­al ICT Plan is now avail­able on the Gov­ern­ment of Montser­rat web­site on www.gov.ms.