00:00It's been almost four years since the Ministry of Digital Transformation was
00:04created and today Minister of Digital Transformation, Hassel Barkas, launched
00:09BOLD, an acronym for Building Our Lives Digitally. Mr. Barkas says we live in a
00:15world where technology is all around us and guided by the government's notion of
00:19inclusion by design, he said the public and private sectors and academia have
00:24all contributed to a growing ecosystem of tech and tech development in TNT.
00:29And his ministry has worked in tandem with other ministries on several projects.
00:34The Adult Literacy Tutors Association, ALTA, which is also here and represented with us,
00:39having their things online, working with us in our spaces, all of this speaks to what we're doing
00:45in terms of the digital transformation. Our regional and international partners,
00:49the Caribbean Telecommunication Union, the ITU, the International Telecommunication Union,
00:53Inter-American Development Bank, the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean,
00:57the European Union. Prime Minister-in-waiting Stuart Young delivered his feature address at
01:02the symposium saying it is time the citizens of Trinidad and Tobago embrace digitalization
01:08and utilize the tools available to make life simpler. It cannot be that we go forward for
01:15the next five years and cannot do more online. It cannot be that when I travel to certain countries
01:24I have the staff at our consulates and our embassies telling me about problems that they have
01:31with persons in that country getting visas to enter Trinidad and Tobago and being unable to pay
01:38online for those visas. That is no longer acceptable. Minister Young recalled a time
01:45when the Ministry of Digital Transformation worked on an app that was helpful to many
01:50during the pandemic. One of the first things we did in record time was implement an app called the
01:58travel app, travel pass. And it was me working with Minister Bacchus to find that solution,
02:04pushing to turn it around that people could literally be on a smartphone, a computer,
02:08an iPad, anything around the world, fill in the application. We received it here,
02:14we built the backbone out. Were there teething problems? Absolutely. I remember receiving calls,
02:19reaching out to Minister Bacchus saying, this person is Canada, this person in England, they're
02:23saying they can't get it. Turned out that, okay, it wasn't working properly off of your
02:28Apple phone, it could work off of a Android and these, but you quickly ironed it out.
02:33He says digital transformation is the way forward and it is part of the vision he has for TNT.
02:39Sharla Kisto, TV6 News.
Comments