Articles

It is time to establish a St. Lucia Internet Technology Group!

I am convinced that someone has to beat the technology drum and call the community to assemble. There is so much being said and done to highlight the power of Technology, especially as it relates to the Internet which provides sources of information on every conceivable topic, including self destruction.

Congratulations to the organisers of the recently held Technology Exhibition at the National Cultural Centre September 12-15, 2002. I do hope that it is evident to the organisers that the next time round it should be held at a venue where each exhibitor will be completely separated from the other so that demos and lectures could be effectively done. I suggest that the Castries Comprehensive School and the Sir Ira Simmon's Secondary School be used as venues that would afford the kind of environment alluded to earlier and the opportunity to expand the range of goods and services presented to the public.

Up to this point, C&W has not done as much as it can to develop collaboration among the players except to provide services that will facilitate telecommunication and internet services. I have drawn over time to the attention of Executives of C&W that they should provide for the services that will give back something to their customers, especially those using the internet to promote their businesses.

I recommend an opt-in service to capture email addresses of subscribers who are willing to receive special offers and information via email and make it available to persons offering certain programmes upon request.

Another welcome area is to promote a technology group as being called for in the headline of this article. Maybe three categories - students, surfers, entrepreneurs and professionals.

Finally, I feel that C&W should promote a competition for local websites where webmas-ters will be challenged to produce world class web-sites and keep them updated as is so lacking at the moment. C&W has the ability to create the environment to involve the players and let our nation as a whole benefit from more involvement and information that will ultimately redound to the good of all our people.

There is a pressing need for our Entrepreneurs to seriously embrace technology. We need to find ways to bring then into the playing field. There is no limit to our involvement, every product or service has a place on the Internet. Of course the offers that present value for money will succeed every time.

We must not be passive about our involvement in technology in particular the internet. Our future is limited to our acceptance for this mode of communication and we must put it to work for us. I invite you to begin the process by joining the St. Lucia Internet Technology Group which is hosted at MSN Groups. The web address is http://groups.msn.com/StLuciaInternetTechnologyGroup/

Keep the Faith! God is in charge!
September 21, 2002