Your ticket to Jurassic Park

The stage was set — all the tickets were sold, the hero had returned — but the gods had other plans.  He certainly rained on our parade.  The only beneficiaries were the organisers of the “Trini Posse” stand.  They will eventually resolve the dispute over the portion of the “all inclusive” ticket to be refunded. The message I gleaned from this one-day cricket disaster is the need for contingency planning. Trinidad and Tobago continues to peg its future on the monetisation of our natural gas resources.  This will serve us well for only as long as external consumption patterns remain unchanged or until some other player enters the market.

Meanwhile the globe talks about living in the information age while our conversation focuses on computer literacy.  It means we have lost the game even before the coin is tossed.  The world is heading to India and China for technicians and consumer goods while we argue about CEPEP,  constitutional reform, building an overpass,  how to reward Lara, the lunacy of referring to the Minister of Education on an official platform as “Wifey,” who should greet Mandela in the airport and the list goes on. We have not yet accepted that the gods come in many forms and he is not a Trinidadian.  The sooner we can find the mechanism to place free internet service for citizens in Moruga, Guayaguayare, Pt Fortin, Vegas, Desperlie Crescent and Duncan Street, the sooner our citizens will be empowered to surf the superhighway and find their niche. Our solution to the scourges of crime, aids and illiteracy lies in the transformation of our citizens into highly educated, information competent “techno beings” with the capacity to compete against labour from any part of the world.

At our current rate of innovation, Jurassic Park seems to be our destiny.  What is needed is an intervention which will provide break-through results in Education. The role of the government in this regard is to facilitate that development, not micromanage it.  We simply do not have the resources to teach each citizen what the information super highway of the internet provides.  At all levels of the society from grandmother to grandchild, their curiosity must be aroused to find their place on the net.  This can’t happen if they have to think of the cost of logging on. Somewhere, someone must take the initiative and change the environment, put meaning and life to the concept of “paradigm shift.”  The late “true” father of our nation talked about washing machines and televisions in each home, we must be talking about internet access in each home free of charge.  

Recently one of our hotels advertised for “house keepers” ie persons to make the beds and had as a requirement “computer literacy.” Big “steups” was the reaction of some, but that’s the reality of our brave new world.  A reality of the information age where the kindergarten slate has been replaced by the computer key-board and entry to school requires that the 5 year old be competent on the information superhighway. The young will have no problem learning but their problem is access.  If access is widely available then people will teach themselves.  Before the energy bubble bursts, we must transform our society to operate on the edge of this exciting new world of information technology.  We continue to be fed the same diet of “ho-hum”, a school here, a stadia there and I am not seeing the thinking which will give me the confidence that we understand the global shift. We seem to have pegged our second strategy on the sun, sand and sea product which is at best mediocre.  The thousands and thousands of tourists have not flocked to our shores.  If you want to see what the competitive advantage of sun, sea and sand looks like, just turn onto the travel channel and you’ll understand that we can hardly compete. Our true capacity to compete lies in the intellectual power of our people which so far is not being unleashed. 

In the world of advertising, CEOs often ask “what’s the biggest bang for my buck?”  My passionate response on this occasion is that we must explode the opportunities for John Public to ride the information superhighway. Nobody can guarantee citizens that they will be successful, all you can do is to provide “de bad boys and girls” with the tools to make the best of their lives.  As someone who spent the first 18 years of my life behind the bridge, education was the tool I was given.  I am confident that given the opportunity, the weapon of information technology will prevail over the gun.

The views expressed in this column are not necessarily those of Guardian Life. You are invited to send your comments to guardianlife @ghl.co.tt