While the local computer industry is yet to capture the public imagination, the telecommunications sector has left an indelible mark since liberalisation in 2001 - making it the focus of this year's Jamaica Computer Society (JCS) Biztech Forum at the Ritz-Carlton resort in Montego Bay, St James.

Beginning on Thursday the three-day event will include exhibits from 20 local information technology communication (ICT) companies in addition to presentations, seminars and workshops.

"Our focus is on looking at the information communication technology (ICT) industry and what the telecommunications issues are from a national standpoint, and wanting to ensure from a policy standpoint they reflect the kind of prudence which makes good business sense. We are where we are in Jamaica because we deregulated the telecommunications industry and that has brought in Claro (formally MiPhone), Digicel and Flow and has changed the way Cable & Wireless see things - it has simply exploded in the past six years," said JCS president Nigel Henry during an interview with Sunday Finance.

Henry is hoping that the event will help boost what he, and others in his profession, believe is a local ICT sector suffering from a lack of resources, especially in the field of software programming.

"One of the issues that we have, whereas there is a fair amount of technology being deployed, we are only users of technology but in any real sense creators, I would like to see Jamaica be a technology creator and that requires research and facilities to house that research," he said. "If we are going to be successful we are going to have to create enough resources to be successful, for instance if someone wants to come here from the United States and set up a software house and says 'I hear you guys are smart and I need 150 programmers?' - I fear that we would have a challenge," he said.

He estimates that of approximately 300 annual ICT graduates, half will emigrate within two years to work overseas. However, he believes there lies potential for ICT job creation with the assembly of computers.

"One area that I believe deserves government attention is the assembly of PCs. It's happening a lot but it's happening underground because a lot of the people who assemble them are using software that may not be licensed appropriately and so there are issues there that need to be dealt with. I believe that it is a huge part of our economy because a lot of people who have PCs don't buy brand-name PCs, they buy them from people who bring the parts in from overseas and assemble them but I don't think it's being counted in gross domestic product (GDP), because it's simply not being measured.

"It can create a lot of opportunity for young people who have those kinds of skills to use the skills to create jobs for themselves. That is from a policy standpoint something that government needs to acknowledge and perhaps negotiate with the software companies some kind of mechanism to allow these hardware technicians to create these jobs."

Government itself could save millions of dollars by purchasing locally assembled PCs, which are cheaper than its current supply of brand-name PCs, he contended.

Local PC assembly is one of several issues on which Henry hopes the JCS can lobby more intensively in the future, for which it is attempting to raise sufficient resources. He added that the society was in discussions with Jamaica Trade and Invest (JTI) about conducting an islandwide survey of Internet access.

Separate rates are charged to attend the event for Jamaica Computer Society (JCS) members and non-members. Students can arrange special rates on a case-by-case basis.

For more information contact the JCS: 929-5307 or biztechforum_maxine@jamaicacomputersociety.org

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