Cuffie says data is the new oil

“With the amount of data that we are producing today, we believe we are sitting on a huge reserve of untapped wealth in Trinidad and Tobago and the Caribbean,” he said.

Cuffie, who holds the portfolio for telecommunications and information communication technology (ICT) said, TT is ideally placed to attract investments in the business processing outsourcing (BPO) sector.

In the main address yesterday at the opening ceremony for the Internet of Things Forum: Smarter Living in the Caribbean held at the Parliament Building, Portof- Spain, Cuffie said a number of businesses including Amazon Web Services, the world’s largest provider of cloud services, two weeks ago, visited TT to explore business opportunities.

“What was not announced then,” he said, “is that Amazon already has a toe-hold in Trinidad and Tobago by partnering with iQor, the business process outsourcing provider, to provide its services to Amazon from new offices, located in Barataria.” He noted that iQor also has offices in the Tamana In-Tech Park which is serving US telecom providers Sprint and Metro.

The Barataria location, Cuffie said, “will see iQor moving up from not just voice, but also SMS, online chat, and of course, email in due course.” This project is expected to employ over 1,000 nationals.

Three weeks ago, he said, Cabinet approved an offer from the Indian government to sign a memorandum of understanding with the Ministry of Public Administration and Communications to establish an ICT Centre for Excellence and Innovation in TT. Consideration is being given to accommodate the centre in the Tamana In-Tech Park, he said.

Also, he said, BHP Billiton’s announcement that it has moved its North American Petroleum accounting and reporting functions from Houston, Texas to Port-of- Spain shows TT is being considered a a major centre for BPO.

By relocating its accounting services from Houston to Portof- Spain, BHP Billiton (headquartered in Australia), he said, will be exporting accounting services from TT to the USA and other countries in the region.

This is in addition to RBC and Scotiabank which, he noted, are already using BPO services in TT.

Meanwhile, he said, discussions are ongoing to attract more companies in the financial services and energy sectors.

At the governmental level, Cuffie said, Cabinet is considering refining its ICT road map “fastforward II” which has a facilitative component in providing ICT infrastructure.

“Our ICT infrastructure must be continuously upgraded and enhanced to keep in stride with the country’s growth and development path,” he said.

With broadband internet becoming more widely available in TT and more devices created with wifi capabilities and sensors built into them, he said, the level of potential connectivity presents the perfect storm for the mushrooming of Internet of Things (IOT) and “we believe that data is indeed the new oil.”