Nass­er Khan

At­i­ba Phillips is a young mover and shak­er who has em­braced the chal­lenge of en­cour­ag­ing our youth through the use of tech­nol­o­gy, in ar­eas such as agri­cul­ture. To that end, he set up a non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion in 2009, the Com­mu­ni­ty HUB (Hope, Un­der­stand­ing, Be­lief) ded­i­cat­ed to this pur­pose.The HUB is an in­no­v­a­tive so­cial en­ter­prise with a glob­al vi­sion for change through the de­vel­op­ment of youth and com­mu­ni­ties by lever­ag­ing In­for­ma­tion and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Tech­nolo­gies (ICTs).

It is the medi­um through which Phillips and his board are de­ter­mined to help build our youth ca­pac­i­ty, by in­tro­duc­ing un­der­served youth, es­pe­cial­ly through ed­u­ca­tion­al tech­nol­o­gy-based pro­grammes, video, an­i­ma­tion, dig­i­tal me­dia, web and mo­bile.The HUB works through a net­work of pro­fes­sion­als in the ICT field as well as school prin­ci­pals, par­ents, and vol­un­teers skilled in oth­er dis­ci­plines who are ad­vo­cates for youth.An ICT strat­e­gy ex­pert, Phillips has served as chair­man and CEO of the Na­tion­al ICT Com­pa­ny Ltd of T&T (iGovTT), where he was the State's ICT lead in prime min­is­te­r­i­al mis­sions to In­dia, Brazil and the USA.

He al­so cur­rent­ly ad­vis­es lo­cal, re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al bod­ies on ICT mat­ters through his firm, In­fo­comm Tech­nolo­gies Ltd. Phillips is al­so a mem­ber of the ICT Pro­gramme Ad­vi­so­ry Board of the Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T and has lec­tured at the mas­ters lev­el in Strate­gic IT in e-Busi­ness and e-Mar­ket­ing through the Uni­ver­si­ty of Green­wich, Eng­land.He holds an MBA from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia at Berke­ley, USA, and is both a Ful­bright and Haas Mer­it Schol­ar.

The pro­gramme that has re­cent­ly en­gaged stu­dents at schools such as Suc­cess Laven­tille Com­pos­ite (Team Agri­ol­o­gy) and St George's Col­lege (Team Agri-In­fo), UTT (Team AgriTech), Costaatt and Team Bish­op Cen­te­nary is the Agri-Hack Tal­ent Com­pe­ti­tion which sup­ports the de­vel­op­ment of ICT in­no­va­tions and en­tre­pre­neur­ship in agri­cul­ture.Stu­dents were pre­sent­ed with six Caribbean chal­lenges fac­ing re­gion­al agri­cul­ture stake­hold­ers from which to choose and tasked with de­vel­op­ing an ap­pli­ca­tion to solve this. Their pre­sen­ta­tion in­clud­ed the el­e­ments of the prob­lem, the pro­posed so­lu­tion, the tar­get au­di­ence for the ap­pli­ca­tion, clear­ly out­lined ben­e­fits, and rev­enue streams.Since the HUB's start-up in 2009 it has en­gaged youth in the ar­eas of ICT's and Ed­u­ca­tion, ICT's and the En­vi­ron­ment and ICT's and Crime.

Q: Tell us a bit about your ear­ly years: where were you born, grew up, and where did you at­tain your var­i­ous lev­els of ed­u­ca­tion?

A: I was born and raised in Di­a­mond Vale and at­tend­ed Di­a­mond Vale Pri­ma­ry School. From there, I went to Fa­ti­ma Col­lege where as a crick­eter, as a fast bowler, I used to bowl down Lara when he came to prac­tice with us (laugh­ing). I was cap­tain of the school crick­et teams at the Un­der-16 and Un­der-19 lev­els, and I al­so qual­i­fied for the na­tion­al Un­der-19 team.Af­ter Fa­ti­ma Col­lege, I went to UWI, St Au­gus­tine, where I pur­sued a Bach­e­lor's de­gree in man­age­ment stud­ies.I grad­u­at­ed from UWI with ho­n­ours and picked up a po­si­tion at the Na­tion­al In­for­ma­tion Sys­tems Cen­tre on the Y2K Task Force. I then went to the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia at Berkley on Ful­bright and Haas Mer­it schol­ar­ships to pur­sue an MBA. Through­out all of my ed­u­ca­tion, though they have busi­ness la­bels, each de­gree had a sig­nif­i­cant tech­nol­o­gy slant. I have been pas­sion­ate about tech­nol­o­gy since my very ear­ly days and I have pur­sued it through­out.

What in­spires you to do what you do? What was the mo­ti­vat­ing fac­tor in start­ing the HUB and what chal­lenges do you face?

Dur­ing my stint at bpTT, there was an "Or­phan­age Project" which a group of us were in­vit­ed to be in­volved in. When we vis­it­ed the chil­dren's homes I was bro­ken-heart­ed by what I saw. The teenagers were just as bright and with all the po­ten­tial as any of us, but they didn't have mon­ey and a fam­i­ly struc­ture around them to nur­ture that po­ten­tial. In­deed they lived in very de­prived con­di­tions. I want­ed to give the ad­min­is­tra­tors all the mon­ey I had in or­der to as­sist, but I knew that that wouldn't even be close to enough.

I saw that be­yond just giv­ing cash what was need­ed was the har­ness­ing of a net­work of the re­source­ful and tal­ent­ed to give back in a struc­tured man­ner. So I vowed to my­self that, as soon as I was able, I would set up an in­sti­tu­tion to help young peo­ple such as these, and that is how the HUB even­tu­al­ly came about in our at­tempt to bring hope, un­der­stand­ing and be­lief to our youth. Find­ing that steady and sus­tain­able fund­ing source, as well as a suit­able place, a home to op­er­ate train­ing pro­grammes out of, con­tin­ue to be our ba­sic chal­lenges. I'd re­al­ly like the pri­vate sec­tor as well as the Gov­ern­ment to get more on board with us. We are open to part­ner­ships and col­lab­o­ra­tions to get things done. When I look around the coun­try and see how many men–young men–are va­grants on the street, it is dis­heart­en­ing. Men are sup­posed to be the head of the house­hold, the back­bone of so­ci­ety...why are so many of us des­ti­tute?

I have a the­o­ry that it can take as lit­tle as two con­sec­u­tive wrong de­ci­sions to land a per­son in­to a des­ti­tute sit­u­a­tion. I am mo­ti­vat­ed to help our young men and young peo­ple in gen­er­al to make bet­ter de­ci­sions and have bet­ter out­comes.If you are go­ing to get in­to this type of work, make sure that you are do­ing it for the right rea­sons. The pop­u­la­tions such as the ones we try to as­sist have been abused. We try not to be yet an­oth­er source of dis­ap­point­ment to our con­stituents. This is a high­ly sac­ri­fi­cial course. It is not some­thing to pur­sue for per­son­al gain or to earn points. The re­ward to be had is see­ing the changed lives that area re­sult of our on­go­ing in­ter­ven­tions.

If some­one on­ly reads a cou­ple lines of this in­ter­view what would you want them to know?

I think that I would like them to see the po­ten­tial in our youth to­day. Time up­on time we have seen young peo­ple who were des­tined to be in­volved in vi­o­lence and oth­er types of un­de­sir­able ac­tiv­i­ty change course. Some have re­al­ly ex­celled to the ex­tent that we have been able to stay in con­tact with them and con­tin­u­ous­ly ex­pose them to new ed­u­ca­tion­al life ex­pe­ri­ences. In short, I'd like them to know that if you make time for our youth, they will yield for us the great­est re­turn. The HUB has seen de­vel­op­ments in par­tic­i­pants that go far be­yond the tech­nol­o­gy skills train­ing and in­to the realm of per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al de­vel­op­ment such as en­hanced co-op­er­a­tion and team­work, in­creased sense of self-worth, bet­ter fa­mil­ial and com­mu­ni­ty re­la­tions as well as much brighter and clear­er ca­reer vis­tas.

And what oth­er thoughts and in­for­ma­tion about the HUB would you like to share with our read­ers?

We strong­ly feel that com­pe­tence with re­gard to ICTs, par­tic­u­lar­ly for un­der­served youth, can be an av­enue out of dis­en­fran­chise­ment, an av­enue for re­search, skill de­vel­op­ment, in­no­va­tion and ca­reer ad­vance­ment no mat­ter what ca­reer you choose. It's be­com­ing a crit­i­cal life skill and we don't want pock­ets of youth and com­mu­ni­ties left be­hind.

Who was your hero or idol grow­ing up (fic­tion­al or re­al or both) and why? And who do you ad­mire most to­day?

When I was grow­ing up, it was the In­cred­i­ble Hulk! I guess as a boy, I could re­late to the in­ter­nal con­flicts and du­al­i­ty of the char­ac­ter, while ad­mir­ing his phys­i­cal strength. Now I ad­mire every­day peo­ple who work hard and sup­port their chil­dren and fam­i­lies to ex­cel. Some of the par­ents of stu­dents who have passed through our pro­grammes are re­al he­roes. Through what­ev­er hard­ships and chal­lenges they faced, they en­sured that their chil­dren at­tend­ed every ses­sion. In turn, they are able to cel­e­brate with us when they see the change in their sons and daugh­ters and what they are able to ac­com­plish, much be­yond their ex­pec­ta­tions.

What ad­vice would you give to the coun­try's youths to cre­ate a bet­ter so­ci­ety?

At the end of the day, it's up to you. Our fu­ture is in your hands. Live with care and dili­gence, rather than be tak­en by the lat­est fad.

What was the most dif­fi­cult de­ci­sion you ever had to make?

To leave a steady job which I en­joyed to found the non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion and launch out on my own in­to busi­ness.

What dai­ly mot­to/cre­do do you live by...your recipe for suc­cess?

Choose life, know your iden­ti­ty and recipe, hmm....eat lots of fruits and veg­eta­bles (laughs out loud)!

De­scribe your­self in two words, one be­gin­ning with A, the oth­er with P, the ini­tials of your name?

Ad­vo­cate. Pa­tient.

Fu­ture pro­grammes? Con­tact in­fo, so­cial me­dia etc?

In the new year, we plan to run a pro­gramme on Dis­as­ter Risk Man­age­ment and Re­sponse Ed­u­ca­tion and deep­en our part­ner­ships in the agri­cul­ture space to do more in that area. You can con­tact us at the HUB at in­fo@my­commu­ni­ty­hub.org or via our Web site at www.my­commu­ni­ty­hub.org and our Face­book page www.face­book.com/my­commu­ni­ty­hub.org. Tele­phone num­ber 683-6300. We are lo­cat­ed 10 Eighth Street, Barataria.