WORLD Bank representative Gorgio Valentini argues that it is critical to promote ICT in Jamaica is critical as an economic sector and driver of skills creation.

He says that the establishment of microwork aggregator hubs will provide the training, infrastructure and support for young Jamaicans to gain employment in the virtual economy.

It also can provide opportunities for incubation of a subset of start-up companies emerging from the app competition and hackathon organised as part of Digital Jam 2.0.

Valentini believes that Digital Jam 2.0 has presented a set of new opportunities that are emerging in the global virtual economy and in the broader move towards digitalisation — with a specific focus on opportunities for young people. Such opportunities include different forms of employment (task-based, direct, self-employment, etc) as well as entrepreneurship and business development.

More strategically, Valentini notes, the low ICT penetration in Jamaica’s public, private and education sectors has had a negative impact in moving the economy to a globally competitive one as these sectors are still highly based on paper-driven processes. Jamaica’s society of the future will also provide the highly skilled workforce that is needed to increase productivity and diversify the economy with more value-added products and services.

Digital Jam 2.0 was created as an event to mark the beginning of a broader process to establish the basis for digitalisation of Jamaican society, the creation of a viable ecosystem for IT technologies to flourish, and the utilisation of new virtual market niches for employment generation.

Valentini called on the private sector and the government to converge on a vision of a modern and competitive digital island in which” the youth are the champions, the implementers, the innovators, and the disruptive force for creating a new Jamaican model”.

First, he believes there is a need to transition the private sector and the Government to fully automated and paperless processes that would also increase overall productivity and linkages with the global markets. The youth and the private sector could partner in the digitalisation of records in private sector companies and government agencies to facilitate the transition of these sectors to paperless processes.

Second, transform the Government to a citizen-centric and paperless model so that policy development and service delivery to business and citizens are greatly improved. The Government could fully outsource the provision of services to private sector companies allowing the Government to focus more on its core activities while increasing its internal efficiencies, service effectiveness, and policy development.

Finally, he argues that the Government enables the establishment of a cashless economy that would benefit all groups and people in Jamaica through lowering transaction costs.