COVID-19 found Caribbean IT infrastructure seriously wanting
Communication technology infrastructure and services that inhibit the ability of the Caribbean to make adjustments to the manner in which business and educational pursuits are undertaken in the current COVID-19 environment continues to be a much-discussed issue across the region.
Most recently, Stephen Phillips, a Barbadian official with Bitt Inc. - a Barbados-based financial technology company whose core focus is providing access to cryptocurrencies in emerging markets - utilised a public forum in the CARICOM member country to make the point that there is no infrastructure in place in the Caribbean that permits businesses to go on line in a simple, cost-effective and accessible manner.
Phillips, Vice President of Special Projects with Bitt Inc. which utilises blockchain to secure peer-to-peer transactions with seamless mobile money across a suite of the company’s software and mobile applications, said that the weakness became quite evident when the economic effects of COVID-19 began to be felt across the region a few months ago.
His comments, reported in a June 22, Barbados Advocate Business Monday supplement, came during the recent Sagicor Cave Hill School of Business’ webinar, where he said that even though the pandemic and ensuing lockdown helped to propel the need for digital payments and business transactions online, those services became increasingly difficult to access.
“In Barbados our experience was really traumatic – there were a lot of businesses scrambling to figure out how to have customers pay online and it was quite chaotic... and it really highlighted the fact that the infrastructure, accessible infrastructure is really missing. There isn’t any local or even regional infrastructure that would allow a business to go online in a simple manner, in a cost effective manner, in an accessible manner and on a whole, digital payments are not very inclusive in the region,” Phillips is quoted as saying.
In Guyana, meanwhile, public disclosure about technology limitations have revolved to a greater extent around difficulties associated with delivering virtual classes to help compensate for the protracted closure of schools across the country. National infrastructure aside, efforts to create structured virtual classrooms have been seriously inhibited not just by the limitations of the local internet service, where some remote parts of the country get no service but also by the fact that both computer systems and internet services are missing from many homes across the country.
Some weeks ago, Mike Mohan, Chief Executive Officer of Starr Computers, one of the largest hardware distributors in Guyana weighed in on the problem, pointing out that what the experience of COVID-19 ought to have taught Guyana is that twenty-first-century communication technology “is not something that we can wait to have.” Mohan had told the Stabroek Business that the time is overdue for government and the service providers in the information and communication technology industry to begin to engage seriously on the issue of creating an infrastructure that is responsive to the country’s developmental needs. “It is not something that we can afford to debate any longer nor is it something that we can “not afford.”
Phillips, meanwhile, says that the fact that the Caribbean is “definitely lagging behind as a region in terms of facilitating online business and commerce” has retarded the ability of our economies to grow and for our businesses to innovate and to deliver new products and services.
Noting that its tourist industry was one of the region’s primary economic assets and heavily reliant on foreign direct investment, Phillips said that ease of doing business has a major role to play in attracting investors. “If I have to go and stand in a queue to open a business or to pay taxes, you know it becomes a less than attractive environment,” he is quoted as saying.
Mohan, meanwhile, has told the Stabroek Business that Guyana’s information technology deficit, if not addressed as a matter of urgency will not only make doing business “more and more difficult,” but will also have the effect of “leaving our education system lagging behind if the weakness is not quickly recognised as a serious deficiency.”