MONTEGO BAY, St James – The Montego Bay-based Caribbean Institute of Technology (CIT) will begin activities to commemorate Information and Communication Technology Awareness Week tomorrow, as part of its seventh anniversary celebrations.

CIT was opened in 1999 by the Government of Jamaica, with a mandate to significantly increase the number of software developers and programmers in the island. The institution has since expanded its training offerings to include the CISCO academic programme, and has trained more than 1,500 people.

CIT business development and marketing manager Jacqueline McBean-Blake said the week of activities was geared to making Jamaicans more aware of ICT and its impact on their daily lives.

“We are therefore going to bring together companies that are information technology driven to interact with students, business persons, non governmental organisations as well as government agencies,” she said.

Held under the theme “Caribbean Institute of Technology: changing lives, impacting industries, building a nation”, the activities will begin with a church service at the Calvary Baptist Church in Montego Bay. Other activities include the staging of an exposition at the western city’s civic centre on February 8.

Commerce Science and Technology Minister Phillip Paulwell will open the expo, where the speakers will include Jim Smith, president of the Lavell Group of Companies in New York and Elizabeth Terry, the director of planning and projects development at HEART Trust/NTA. Michael du Quesnay, the CEO of the Central Information Technology Office and mayor of Montego Bay, Noel Donaldson are also scheduled to speak at the event.

On Thursday, CIT will launch its Training of Trainers Programme in the Farm Heights community of St James, and end the week of celebrations, on Friday, with launch of the Jamaica Outsourcing Association (JOA), also at the Montego Bay Civic Centre.