Global Cubes in Space to launch in T&T

Fifteen NorthGate College students are to receive awards from the Canadian High Commissioner for the school’s winning entry in the global Cubes in Space programme.

Cubes in Space is a no-cost global design contest in which teams of secondary school students from around the world compete by developing science experiments for launch into space. The T&T-based campus of NorthGate College won the 2014 global prize for experiment design.

Each student will receive an award from Canadian-based Cubes in Space organisers, iDoodlesSoftware, at the special ceremony hosted at the High Commissioner’s residence in Port-of-Spain on September 26.

“It is significant that students from a school in a Caribbean country with no space programme could design an experiment, have that experiment sent into space and win our global contest,” iDoodleSoftware Inc. founder and chief executive Robert Sowah told the Guardian.

The prizegiving will double as the global launch of the 2015 Cubes in Space programme, which targets 11- to 14-year-old students. The ceremony will feature presenters such as US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) astronaut Dr Roger Crouch, who flew on two US space shuttle missions, and Bevil Wooding, chief knowledge officer of Congress WBN.

"The hope is that more kids from around the world will be taking part in this one as a result of the Caribbean’s and NorthGate College's success," Amber Dee-Hart, coordinator for the Cubes In Space program said in an interview.

The Cubes In Space program is a partnership between idoodlesoftware inc., Rubik Learning Initiative, the Colorado Space Grant Consortium’s RockSat-C program and supported by the Sounding Rocket Program Office at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility.

The launch is being held in conjunction with the BrightPath Foundation TechLink event, which is being held on September 27 at the Cipriani College of Labour and Cooperative Studies, Valsayn.

BrightPath Foundation brings TechLink to T&T

Secondary school teachers and students will be immersed in a day of technology gadgets, spacemen and science experiments when the BrightPath TechLink program comes to T&T on September 27. “TechLink combines hands-on technology training with fun-filled creative activity, wrapped into a values-based learning experience that we believe can benefit participant for life,” BrightPath Foundation executive director Bevil Wooding told T&T Guardian. In the all-day event, students will use tablets, micro-computers, drones and robots to conduct special experiments that reinforce basic principles of science, technology, engineering and math. Since TechLink’s launch in Grenada in November 2013, over 400 persons, including educators, small business entrepreneurs, young people and parents in Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados and Saint Lucia, have taken part in the initiative. But for the T&T edition, there is a twist. Capitalising on the interest in space experiments following NorthGate College’s success in the 2014 Cubes In Space experiment design global contest, TechLink Trinidad will focus on a suite of technology-based science experiments, under the theme “exploration: learning, developing, innovating.” “Together with our collaborative partner iDoodleSoftware, we will be hosting NASA astronaut Dr Roger Crouch in Trinidad for the TechLink event,” Wooding said. “The goal is to produce a context in which education is more engaging and interactive. Participants  will be get to be young explorers for the day. They will split into groups to tackle real-world problems and use technology and science to come up with solutions,” he said. Corporate sponsors include regional broadband-provider Columbus Communications and the Telecommunications Authority of Trinidad and Tobago. Rhea Yaw Ching, corporate vice president of sales and marketing at Columbus, said the partnership with BrightPath is part of Columbus’ wider commitment to investing in the communities it serves. “As more affordable high-speed Internet access becomes a reality across the region, Columbus is actively looking for opportunities to help users at every level understand how to make the most of it.” TechLink Trinidad will include an Educators Forum, designed to equip secondary school teachers with know-how and practical tools to use technology in the classroom. “While the students enjoy the chance to go deep into digital content creation, teachers will learn new and better ways to use technology in the nation’s classroom. This is technology meeting the real world. The goal here is to give a real sense of the possibility of technology being applied to Caribbean education," Wooding said. TechLink Trinidad will be held at the Cipriani College of Labour and Cooperative Studies on September 27.

St Kitts and Nevis to host ICT Week

When a high-level group of Caribbean Telecommunications Union (CTU) members meet in St Kitts and Nevis from September 22 to 26 September, the challenge of regulating over-the-top (OTT) Internet-based services will no doubt be a main point of focus. In one important forum, a discussion on OTT services will bring ministers from different Caribbean nations up-to-date on the issues surrounding this type of service. The need for stronger, more coordinated regional Internet governance practices was first highlighted in July after mobile phone users in Haiti, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago were affected by a move by two major Caribbean mobile providers to block access to OTT telephony services—including several popular Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) applications.

The week will also include a two-day workshop on cyber security, which will focus on how Caribbean countries can create Computer Security Incident Response Teams (CSIRT) to respond to the threat of digital breaches. The workshop is being facilitated by the Organisation of American States, with the financial support of the Government of Canada.

Another workshop will target senior public officers with responsibility for national information and communications technology (ICT) policy. Participants will learn how to find and deal with gaps in their policy frameworks or in some cases how to go about developing such policies. The training will be led by two experts from Ernst and Young Caribbean, based in T&T, Dr. Arnold Niranjan and Devindra Ramnarine.

Hosted by the government of St Kitts and Nevis and the CTU, the ICT Week will include the 17th General Conference of Ministers with responsibility for ICT in the CTU Member States. It also includes the 29^th meeting of the CTU’s Executive Council, a body made up of permanent secretaries from ministries in the region that deal with technology. The Council has oversight responsibility for the work of the CTU Secretariat.

At this year’s meeting, Bernadette Lewis, Secretary General of the CTU, will present to the meeting her report on the CTU's performance and its progress on ongoing projects. Lewis’ is the tough but necessary task of steering the CTU’s efforts in creating a harmonised approach to Caribbean telecommunications development, a major issue facing the region’s technology and telecommunications sectors. In her presentation, she will update members on how the work of the CTU has advanced since the previous council meeting, held in  Suriname on April 8 to 9.

The CTU’s efforts in Caribbean Internet governance have been longstanding. Established in 1989 by Caricom heads of government in Nassau, the CTU in 2005, under Secretary General Lewis, initiated the Caribbean Internet Governance Forum (CIGF), the world’s first regional multi-stakeholder Internet governance forum, established as a result of the World Summit of the Information Society (Geneva 2003 to Tunis 2005). Regional forums of this kind now take place in all other parts of the world.

The ICT Week comes on the heels of a symbolic return to Bahamas, where delegates participated in the 10th CIGF from August 6 to 8.