Welcome to our ICT Minister Philip Paulwell and ICT State Minister Julian Robinson

Philip Paulwell | Minister, Mining, Energy & ICT

We’d like to welcome Philip Paulwell, Minister of Mining, Energy & ICT and  Julian Robinson, State Minister of Mining, Energy & ICT to what will be an awesome year for Technology, Tech Entrepreneurship and Jamaica. Both gentlemen were appointed today as part of the Portia Simpson-Miller led Administration, that officially took the reigns of the country today. Congratulations!

Julian Robinson | State Minister, Mining, Energy & ICT

Minister Paulwell while you were away, alot has happened in the ICT industry. We’ve certainly grown beyond being just about call centres and telecom providers as you know and the range and number of tech professionals and startups have increased significantly. We have about 4 technology blogs, so you are both well covered…as mainstream media seems  to love telecom and call centres news and  not much else. There about 5  new Tech events covering entrepreneurship, developers and designers primarily.

You should attend DevelopingCaribbean.org, it’s a developers conference here in Kingston with partner conferences in Trinidad and Dominican Republic. It’s on January 26 at UWI.  Open data and solving local problems is the conference’s focus.

I am also inviting you to the next Kingston BETA ( Tech Entrepreneurship to di World) which will be on Thursday 23rd February at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel.  The local Tech Community has a strong regional and global network connections with some pretty cool things in development.

The World Bank has their eye on Jamaica especially regarding the Mobile Sector. Angel and venture capitalist have begun to take the Jamaican/Caribbean Tech Community seriously and we’d like you to do so too, by helping to create a legal framework and environment for that venture capital culture to have full effect.

Add to that, we really need for you to fast track the development of Mobile commerce and help Utech to develop a real technology incubator. Let me mention that it’s time for us to not just grow ICT as a stand alone industry, but also to better integrate ICT into Education, Tourism, Exports and Agriculture to make them more efficient and profitable. And please talk to your JAMAICAN experts while you tap the minds of the FOREIGN ones. They have great solutions too.

The list is long I know and I have only just begun. But you get the picture…lots of opportunities to make ICT  a powerhouse of an industry, that could possibly become the number two foreign exchange earner and job creator here.

We know you bring to our industry a wealth of knowledge and experience as well as a few  mistakes we got very, very upset with you for.  That was the past and we’ve all learnt from it all.

We’re happy that you have as your wing man Julian Robinson who has a strong ICT background from a different angle. We watched how he campaigned and we appreciate his fresh, back to basics, relationship building approach. We believe both of you will be awesome together. We expect great things from you ( yes the first 100 days are there to show us some of your intentions) and we are willing to work with you and your teams, to get things done. My BB Pin is 2825D55A if you care for more conversations.

Again, congratulations Ministers!