BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – AS the Federation explores its prospects of achieving a knowledge-based economy, the government of St. Kitts and Nevis will be hosting the first-ever MobileApps Workshop to commence early next week.
The workshop, dubbed “GoSKN – Brightpath Mobile Applications Development Workshop”, will be hosted by the Ministry of Information Technology at the Marriott Hotel and will run from January 24 to 27.
Acting Director in the Department of Information Technology Christopher Herbert told SKNVibes that the workshop is a tangible expression of the vision of Prime Minister Dr. the Right Hon. Denzil L. Douglas and Minister of Information Technology Glen Phillip who envision a St. Kitts-Nevis knowledge-based economy.
“The Prime Minister articulated a vision for St. Kitts-Nevis moving towards a knowledge-based economy. The Minister took that vision on board and, based on the requirements of a knowledge-based economy, he felt that using most recent statistics with regard to our internet and mobile penetration, that the mobile apps workshop was an ideal method to preparing our population for that knowledge-based economy. And this would be done by creating information-literate citizens who are very well connected to information, who are able to solve problems, who are able to access the information that is required for long-term planning and effective decision making.”
Herbert explained that though it would focus on depositing and honing the skills of the participants in the realm of mobile apps development, the workshop is also geared towards “providing the requisite skills for those who have entrepreneurship thoughts and who have very good ideas and might need a mechanism such as mobile apps to be able to contact their clients, to be able to more efficiently contact suppliers…
“The workshop aims therefore, not only to impart the skills required to create these mobile apps, but it also is geared towards imparting leadership values...it is geared towards imparting entrepreneurship skills. All these areas we feel are required as we work towards the knowledge-based economy that the Prime Minister has articulated.”
The conclusion of the four-day workshop - according to Herbert - would not mark the end of the exercise, as a follow-up workshop would be held in August of this year.
“I strongly believe that it is not an initiative that we would want to hold close to our chests. And by that I mean we don’t want to make this a government of St. Kitts-Nevis-only initiative. We are hoping that we can plant the seeds, but not only of entrepreneurship but also of leadership; and that the groups which would have been established during the workshop would continue beyond.”
Herbert expressed his expectation that not only eGovernment-based or productivity-based mobile applications would be created but also entertainment and other applications.
Thus far, 30-plus individuals have registered for the workshop and a total of 45 participants are being catered for.
Interested individuals are asked to submit their applications as soon as possible via http://mobileapps.gov.kn/ in order to secure a spot at the workshop.
The workshop will be facilitated by Bevil Wooding, Mark Hadley, Stephen Lee and Khyron Danclair of the Brightpath Foundation, which falls under the Trinidad-based Congress WBN (CWBN) parent body.
