00:00 As the region undertakes the transition from small island developing state status to small island digital states,
00:07 Trinidad and Tobago, through the Ministry of Digital Transformation,
00:11 is set to establish a Tier 4 data center.
00:15 The idea behind that is we're going to build it to establish a place to house
00:20 very sensitive government data. It's not meant to replace the ones that we have. It's not meant to
00:26 not involve the private sector in what we're doing. It's all going to be in a collaborative way.
00:30 And so it's one more step in, you know, taking that journey to becoming a small island digital state.
00:36 Minister Bakker says the intention is that the center will also service external clients.
00:42 So for those of you who are looking for places to house your data, store your stuff off island in resilient and secure places,
00:49 that's what we're dealing with. He also notes that connectivity is a key component of the digitalization formula.
00:56 Even as he acknowledges the challenges.
00:58 We made a commitment that access to affordable broadband is a public good.
01:04 And I think that is the aim of all all states, whether that's small island developing or otherwise.
01:09 Difficult to achieve, but we're working on it and we're getting there and there are a number of ways that we're doing it.
01:14 The other thing is that we recognize that data is
01:17 probably the most important thing that we all possess across all of the territories that we have. We're not going to be able to
01:25 to get to the place that we need to get to without effective and proper management of our data.
01:31 No mention was made of the slew of cyber attacks across both the public and private sector over the past few months.
01:38 But the minister did list regulation and legislation as priority areas for collaboration.
01:45 Infrastructure aside, Minister Bakker also emphasizes the importance of developing our human resource capacity.
01:53 He had high praise for the recent successes of the developers hub as the ministry seeks to create a
02:00 competitive software development sector in TNT.
02:04 We're training our own people, we're certifying our own people,
02:07 we're challenging our own people and we're giving them things to solve that are affecting the people of Trinidad and Tobago.
02:14 They've solved five critical issues for us.
02:16 For those involved in the business industry of liquor, they've solved the liquor license data management pieces.
02:23 So they have a solution for that.
02:25 For those of you who have ever applied for a passport and wonder where it is in the system,
02:29 they've solved an online tracking application or a new address system, the S42 system.
02:35 They've came up with solutions for that so that customers of the system can find their addresses easily and so on.
02:40 It seems to be one of the issues we have.
02:41 Noise pollution is there for everybody.
02:43 They've come up with ways in which we're going to manage, measure and report that.
02:46 And of course, personalized health monitoring and advisory solutions.
02:51 All of these things were sorted out, solved and addressed by local developers.
02:56 The Ministry of Digital Transformation is inviting members of the public to pitch potential data solutions to our everyday issues.
03:05 Developers will receive funding for successful projects and retain their intellectual rights.
03:12 Vanessa Cutting, TV6 News.
03:15 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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