Partnering for greater good at CaribNOG 8-LACNIC Caribbean 6

Dozens of technology professionals from across Latin America and the Caribbean are gathered in Curacao for one of the most highly anticipated gatherings of the region’s technology community. The opening day of the event attracted over 50 attendees.  And more are expected to participate in Day Two, which is dedicated to covering issues related to cyber security in the region.

The week will cover a range of other technology topics including Internet exchange points, cloud computing, mobile broadband and other critical Internet infrastructure.

But many participants are expecting the coffee breaks to be as transactional as the formal sessions, if not more so.

“People who are doing actual work on the networks in our region come here to collaborate and solve real-world problems together,” Lee said. “Caribnog 8, in particular, has several very important side meetings planned, out of which we are anticipating some quite significant outcomes.”

Junior Mc Intyre, Caribbean Telecommunications Union (CTU) project coordinator for the Caribbean Regional Communications Infrastructure Program (CARCIP), is among those looking forward to the networking that the week offers. For Mc Intyre, the big attraction of this high-profile event was not the sessions but simply the prospect of networking with like-minded technology professionals from across the region.

“We have been working in silos for far too long. A lot of good work is going on right here in the Caribbean but we lack opportunities to share insights with each other,” he said.

CARCIP project coordinators from three OECS countries—Grenada, Saint Lucia and St Vincent and the Grenadines—are also participating in the event.

The weeklong event, which runs from September 29 to October 3, is being held at the Hilton Curacao, Willemstad.

The meeting covers a range of technology topics including cyber security, Internet exchange points, cloud computing, mobile broadband and other critical Internet infrastructure.

More information is available on the official event websites: lacnic.net/web/eventos/caribbean6 and caribnog.org.

Networking for Caribbean development: Regional tech heavyweights gather for CaribNOG 8-LACNIC Caribbean 6

Caribbean people have an appetite for technology that rivals any other region of the world. But who is working behind the scenes to maintain and upgrade the Internet-based services on which we’ve come to depend?

On September 29, the answer to that question was to be found in Curacao, at one of the most highly anticipated gatherings of the region’s technology community.

Jointly hosted by the Caribbean Network Operators Group (CARIBNOG) and the Latin American and Caribbean Internet Addresses Registry (LACNIC), this regional meeting bears one striking difference from many other ICT-themed meetings in the region. It is widely regarded as a solutions-oriented forum.

“This is a place where issues relevant to the future of the Internet at a regional and global level are being discussed. It is not a talk shop,” said Stephen Lee, Caribnog programme coordinator.

Lee was among a panel of experts to deliver the orientation and overview in the morning session. The panel included Shernon Osepa, manager for regional affairs for Latin America and the Caribbean at the Internet Society, Bevil Wooding, founder and executive director of Caribnog, and Carlos Martínez, chief technology officer at Lacnic.

“Caribnog's partnership goes much deeper than co-hosting this event,” Wooding said. "Lacnic covers Latin America and the Caribbean, and Caribnog is a key part of this technical community. We focus on the Caribbean but our concerns and interests extend to Latin America and beyond."

Martinez echoed the sentiment.

“We found that working together with Caribnog, Lacnic can effectively reach audiences in the Caribbean, which is an important subset of our service region.”

The weeklong event, which runs from September 29 to October 3, is being held at the Hilton Curacao in Willemstad.

The meeting covers a range of technology topics including cyber security, Internet exchange points, cloud computing, mobile broadband and other critical Internet infrastructure.

More information is available on the official event websites: lacnic.net/web/eventos/caribbean6 and caribnog.org.

High praise for NorthGate winners at Cubes in Space awards

A former NASA astronaut, the Minister of Education and the Canadian High Commissioner were among several high-profile voices to praise Northgate College at the award ceremony for the global Cubes in Space programme.

Cubes in Space is an international contest in which teams of secondary school students compete by developing science, technology, engineering or mathematics-based (STEM) experiments for launch into space. NorthGate College’s T&T-based campus won the top prize for its experiment design.

Education Minister Dr Tim Gopeesingh applauded the school’s students, teachers, principal and parents “for encouraging our students to move into the realm of STEM education”, adding that said STEM was also a strong point of focus for his ministry.

Seventeen NorthGate College students received awards personally handed out by the former US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) astronaut Dr Robert Crouch at the ceremony, which was hosted at the High Commissioner's residence in Fairways, Maraval on September 26.

“I understand that your design was quite spectacular,” High Commissioner Gérard Latullipe said. “To impress NASA astronauts really speaks volumes about your innovation.”

Each student got a signed lithograph from Crouch, who delivered the keynote address. The NASA scientist said the students’ experiment was “totally unique”. He commended them for doing the “the amount of hard work” needed to research and develop the idea behind the proposal, and lauded their persistence in designing and building the experiment, which was eventually submitted to NASA for space launch.

The experiment, which sought to measure how much electricity is generated by an object moving through the ionosphere, fit into a cube about the size of a baby's fist.

But NorthGate College Director Yolande La Pierre said the real value harvested from the exercise went far beyond the science experiment itself.

“The lasting lesson from Cubes in Space 2014 is the value of helping our children to be critical thinkers and to push past the boundaries of our geographic limitations. These children have become better students and indeed better persons as a result of the hard work, diligence and thoroughness they had to develop to emerge as winners and they did this as a team.”

Robert Sowah, founder of iDoodleSoftware, the Canadian company behind the global contest, congratulated La Pierre and her staff for distinguishing T&T among a field of global competitors, pointing out that NorthGate’s winning submission was “chosen from among hundreds around the world”.

The level of complexity in the experiment made it stand out from every other entry, said Chief Education Officer of idoodleSoftware, Amber Agee Dee-Hart, who founded the Cubes in Space initiative.

Dee-Hart showed the experiment to “several NASA scientists and they were blown away by the complexity of thought, the eloquence with which they spoke in the presentation video that they submitted.”

“It was quite exceptional,” she said.

The Cubes In Space program is a partnership between idoodlesoftware, Rubik Learning Initiative, the Colorado Space Grant Consortium’s RockSat-C program and is supported by the Sounding Rocket Program Office at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility. Bevil Wooding, speaking on behalf of founder and chairman of NorthGate College Dr Noel Woodroffe, described NorthGate's achievement as "a testament to the potential that exists in all our young people".

"This is also a powerful reminder of the importance of providing our youth with leadership examples and a nurturing, values-based environment to inspire them to achieve their very best,” Wooding said. The prizegiving doubled as the global launch of the 2015 Cubes in Space programme, which targets 11- to 14-year-old students.

The award ceremony was held in conjunction with the launch of BrightPath Foundation’s TechLink, a science and technology education event, held on September 27 at the Cipriani College of Labour and Cooperative Studies, Valsayn.