Jamaica Observer published an article on August 19th, 2020 about Jamaica on the path to full digitization.
Members of the PSOJ (Private Sector Organization of Jamaica) and other stakeholders said that the country’s business sector and quality of life enjoyed by citizens could significantly improve if services become fully digital.
Key points:
- Stakeholders agreed in a PSOJ conference that a fully digital Jamaica would be better to help the country recover from the COVID-19 economic fallout. Technology Minister, Fayval Williams said, “the development of a national broadband network with high-speed internet that is accessible to everyone is the first step to becoming fully digital”. She also noted that the second step is the development and use of e-commerce platforms.
- The New Economy Taskforce, a group developed by the Technology Ministry forms part of the Economic Recovery taskforce comprises representatives of both private and public sectors. These groups will follow an eight-part strategy to move the country towards becoming fully digital.
- The strategy includes the creation of an Information and Communications Technology Authority, data-collection and information-sharing policies, a public key infrastructure, a digital national identification system, a data protection legislation, and Electronic Transaction Act, and digitization of 32 million physical records across the government.
- “Four of the eight initiatives were passed in Parliament and partially implemented over the last few years”, the PSOJ stated. The challenge that remains is for businesses to overcome the cultural barrier that makes them cash bound.
Reference: jamaicaobserver.com
Contributed by: Jason Jacobs from Guyana. Jason is a member of the CCST Discord group from the G5 Cyber Security Foundation Ltd. Learn more about CCST (Caribbean Cyber Support Team) by visiting caribbeancst.org. CCST is a collaborative group on the Discord platform for Caribbean people in IT, from beginners to experts.