Using the lockdown to create a new knowledge economy
OUR HISTORY as Jamaicans has been this extraordinary ability to find excellence and positivity in the face of adversity. Look at how we have transformed the offcuts and rejected into great delights, be that culinary oxtail or the wonders of the Jamaican language. This spirit has made Jamaica a significant cultural force on the planet.
In the face of the COVID-19 lockdown, many are thinking that Jamaica might be going backwards as the economy crashes and tourism dries up.
What does a lockdown give a government? Literally a captive audience. This sounds like school to me without the desks and chairs. The Government may not get such an opportunity to reset Jamaica for decades. It is here that it can address its other big virus: rampant crime.
Crime and death have too often become the only certainties in Jamaica as we lead the charts on world homicide rates. Our obsession with security comes from the insecurity that we are going to be ‘licked down’ by the plague or virus of crime. As Bob Marley would say: ‘When you think its peace and safety, a sudden destruction, collective security, for surety”. We are in constant fear of a crime-induced death.
However, over the last few weeks, we have witnessed the rates of murder decreasing, especially gang-related. Put simply, Mr Holness is having a national state of emergency without needing to link this to crime. Instead, the other virus has left robbers and murderers idle because there are simply fewer people on the street to kill and rob.
So, here’s the opportunity within the lockdown. We get the whole country on a national computer coding programme. Nearly every Jamaican has a mobile phone. I would use someone like Miss Kitty and the wonderful richness of Jamaican language. We could devise a daily programme where young and old begin to learn the new language of technology.
This would be of particular relevance for young men, as idle hands would be put to work acquiring this new skill. It may also divert those men who feel frustrated in the cage of curfew not to vent their ‘ignorance’ on their partners.
As the Government thinks of different ways to support small businesses and prop up the economy, it needs to use this as an opportunity to retool Jamaica. The lessons are clear: trying to hustle a dollar from the cruise ships and continual dependence on remittances is too short-sighted.
INVESTING IN PEOPLE
Jamaica’s future lies in investing in its people and their creativity. Why not have a vision postCOVID-19 that makes Jamaica the centre of a new tech future, where the world will come, not just for the sun, the sea and the sand but as a source for digital skills. Government could come up with an incentive alongside Digicel and FLOW, where phone credit is given away to the best students or to all the students.
We will have to do education differently. We are too obsessed with a linear model of primary through to tertiary education. We need to look at what I call lifelong learning models. This means we give free education to anyone who is interested in plugging into the new digital revolution. It doesn’t need classrooms, school uniforms or school fees, just your cell phone.
The parallel is in our music and dance. For decades Jamaicans from poor backgrounds have felt confident enough to jump into a studio, record music and sell it to an international audience. Most of the preparation and development of this talent has been within the informal context of poor communities with few resources.
In the 1970s, we can point to the Ghetto University of Reggae, developed in places like Trench Town. By using the technology of the sound system, the youths creatively put Jamaica on the map.
Surely, we can do the same with the language of coding. For too long India, China and Korea have been seen as the centre for tech know-how. Black people and predominantly black countries have not been seen as tech-savvy. We can run and play music but not be the developers of code to programme the new generation of cell phones. We need to break this mindset. Yes, we can send workers to America for their agricultural programmes, but also become the remote programmers for Google.
Five years ago, Google sponsored my charity Generating Genius to run an online programme using Java. The programme was based at The UWI and University College London. We connected 14-yearold girls from Jamaica with black British girls from a Caribbean background. The programme was fantastic. The girls from Jamaica came to The UWI campus at 6 a.m. and they linked with the UK girls who were based at UCL in London. In pairs we taught them how to use Java and they then designed a joint poster using Java script. The work produced, according to Google, was ‘out of this world’. I quickly realised that Jamaican girls were natural computer coders and could easily get jobs at top international corporates. Many were eager to become game designers for a future generation.
We need to use the lockdown to set up a national love to learn these new skills. This is unlikely to happen because government is like many men: they can’t do more than one thing at the same time. Our current administration will be too consumed in trying to prevent the wider outbreak of COVID-19 that it will miss the opportunity that this tragedy could give us.