Lib­er­ty Caribbean CEO Inge Smidts de­liv­ered a force­ful mes­sage at CAN­TO Con­nect 2026 this week, that the Caribbean must move be­yond lay­ing ca­bles and build­ing tow­ers, and start us­ing its dig­i­tal in­fra­struc­ture to gen­er­ate jobs, ser­vices, and in­no­va­tion that can com­pete glob­al­ly.

“Con­nec­tiv­i­ty is now our foun­da­tion, so the ques­tion be­fore us is sim­ple and ur­gent: with that foun­da­tion in place, what are we go­ing to build?” she told del­e­gates.

Speak­ing un­der the theme El­e­vate the Caribbean – From Con­nec­tiv­i­ty to Glob­al Com­pet­i­tive­ness, Smidts set out a clear agen­da for trans­lat­ing ac­cess in­to im­pact.

She urged lead­ers to an­chor tech­nol­o­gy in Caribbean iden­ti­ty, de­sign re­silient net­works around peo­ple, and ac­cel­er­ate the trans­for­ma­tion of tel­cos in­to tech­nol­o­gy plat­forms that cre­ate home­grown op­por­tu­ni­ties. “When we mar­ry Caribbean cre­ativ­i­ty with de­pend­able con­nec­tiv­i­ty and smart pol­i­cy, we un­lock jobs, ser­vices, and busi­ness­es that com­pete on the world stage,” she said.

Smidts pressed for part­ner­ship mod­els that go be­yond fi­nanc­ing, call­ing for co-reg­u­la­tion, reg­u­la­to­ry sand­box­es, and shared gov­er­nance. Gov­ern­ments, she ar­gued, pro­vide vi­sion and le­git­i­ma­cy; in­dus­try brings scale and tech­ni­cal ca­pa­bil­i­ty; uni­ver­si­ties and civ­il so­ci­ety add scruti­ny and so­cial pur­pose.

“Pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ship is the en­gine that will ac­cel­er­ate progress. When in­cen­tives align, im­pact fol­lows,” she said. Lib­er­ty Caribbean pledged to con­vene in­vestors, de­vel­op­ers, and gov­ern­ments, match­ing pro­grams to cloud and edge in­fra­struc­ture and scal­ing ap­pren­tice­ship pipelines so Caribbean en­tre­pre­neurs can build and ex­port re­gion­al so­lu­tions.

She point­ed to Lib­er­ty’s JUMP in­clu­sion pro­gramme, which com­bines sub­sidised ac­cess, de­vices, train­ing, and en­tre­pre­neur­ship tracks, as proof that con­nec­tiv­i­ty can be en­gi­neered for re­al lo­cal needs.

Smidts em­pha­sised re­silience in a dis­as­ter-prone re­gion, not­ing that Lib­er­ty de­signs net­works for hur­ri­canes, earth­quakes, and vol­ca­noes. “When dis­as­ter strikes, con­nec­tiv­i­ty is not op­tion­al; it is life­sav­ing. Our re­gion­al emer­gency work shows that when in­dus­try play­ers part­ner with satel­lite providers and gov­ern­ments, we can re­store life-crit­i­cal com­mu­ni­ca­tions in hours rather than days,” she said.

Turn­ing to Trinidad and To­ba­go, Smidts high­light­ed the mo­men­tum dri­ven by pub­lic pol­i­cy and in­vestor con­fi­dence, cit­ing the Blue­print Re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion Plan, a suc­cess­ful US$1 bil­lion bond road­show, and high-pro­file in­vestor en­gage­ment.

She point­ed to na­tion­al dig­i­tal ini­tia­tives such as the ANAN­SI dig­i­tal as­sis­tant, part­ner­ships with UN­ESCO and UNDP on AI readi­ness, col­lab­o­ra­tion with Ope­nAI on ed­u­ca­tion and pub­lic ser­vice trans­for­ma­tion, and the De­vel­op­ers’ Hub (D’Hub) en­abling SMEs to co-cre­ate gov­ern­ment dig­i­tal ser­vices.