OVERDRIVE Jamaica Ltd this week expanded its operations in the Montego Bay Free Zone to include electronic publishing, which is expected to create an initial 200 new jobs, with the possibility of another 800 later.

“With the centre we’ve made a significant investment of 200 computers and work stations and we’re not all done yet, we’re still investing. We expect that we will continue to grow and if we continue to have the success we have had in first six months I believe we’ll be expanding far beyond 200 employees here,” said OverDrive Inc’s CEO, Steve Potash. “Right now it’s a new industry but we have work that could potentially employ 500 to 1,000 people if we continue along this pace.”

OverDrive Inc is software, e-commerce and content conversion book industry and they started operating in Montego Bay last year. They have expanded their operations to keep up with demands in the US$1-billion a year industry.

“Basically our employees will help take what was formerly printed materials and transfer the data so it can be purchased and read on computers so we turn it into paperless books or digital files,” Potash said. “The file can be sold on the Internet or it can be part of a textbook a student downloads and reads.”

To date they have employed graduates from the State-subsidised CIT programme, and additional employees will be garnered from a course offered by HEART/NTA at the Montego Bay Community College.

According to technology minister, Phillip Paulwell, the government’s input in the project to date has consisted of training, but the company may also benefit from the government’s IT fund.

“It’s not been formalised as yet but they have applied for some infrastructure funds, but they are doing their build out pending approval. I’m not sure how much will be approved but they have an application in,” he said.