70 December 2015 - Business View Caribbean
One of its community development initiatives is its K
through 16 STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering,
Arts & Mathematics) Academy, which it formed in part-
nership with the University of the Virgin Islands and
the Virgin Islands Department of Education. According
to Coverdale, the STEAM Academy will serve as a mag-
net school, preparing young Virgin Islanders to lead
the technological advances of the next generation.
“Through this program they will either receive certifica-
tion that will allow them to be marketable immediately,
or they will receive a university degree in one of the
related fields,” she says. And while educating the Is-
lands’ youth is a great boon in and of itself, Coverdale
is not unmindful of the added economic benefits of
having a program such as STEAM. “The message that
we want to get to relocated firms,” she says, “is that
they don’t have to bring their people; we have a trained
and sustainable and very highly skilled workforce here
along with our high speed.”
Another way in which viNGN is serving the local popula-
tion is via its 33 public computer centers which service
all three of the major islands: St. Thomas, St. John, and
St. Croix. “We have begun to offer community courses
in the area of communication technologies to prepare
our people to be able to go from being users of tech-
nologies to creators of technologies,” Coverdale says.
Now that viNGN is five years old, Coverdale is looking
ahead to it next five years. “Our number one goal is
to ensure major saturation throughout our islands in
terms of access to our broadband service,” she says.
“Five years from now, I would like to see everybody on
viNGN, whether it’s at home or at school or at business
- all of the government and the schools are already on
there, so we’re reaching saturation quickly, but in five
years I would definitely like to see that.
“Our second major goal is the establishment of a siz-
