Trinidad and Tobago will host a major regional gathering to advance Internet development in the Caribbean. The event, to be held Oct. 2-3, is the 16th regional meeting of the Caribbean Network Operators Group, called CaribNOG. It is being held in partnership with the Latin American and Caribbean Internet Addresses Registry (LACNIC).
CaribNOG is a volunteer-based community, largely drawn from the professionals who design, build, maintain, and secure the computer networks for organizations across the region.
“Like other network operator groups around the world, CaribNOG delivers technical training and facilitates the sharing of professional experiences and network best practices,” said Bevil Wooding, Caribbean Outreach Liaison at the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN), and one of the founders of CaribNOG.
“One would be hard-pressed to find a modern development agenda that excludes the integration of some form of Internet-enabled technology,” he continued. “The Internet is now considered foundational to both economic growth and social empowerment. Forums like CaribNOG are therefore critical to development, because they help create the conditions for a more secure, resilient, reliable and affordable Internet for all.”
ARIN and LACNIC are two of five Internet registries responsible for the coordination of Internet number resources worldwide, and both share that responsibility for the Caribbean region. Over the coming months, the two registries and CaribNOG members will work together to ensure the success of the highly anticipated October meeting. Building on the success of CaribNOG 15, which was held in Miami in April, CaribNOG 16 will continue to focus on the issue of network resilience.
“The resilience of the Internet in the Caribbean depends on and affects many other aspects of regional development. At CaribNOG 16, we hope to leverage the presence of a diverse range of stakeholders to create a high-yield environment for technical discussions about the future of the Caribbean internet,” said Jamaican-born Stephen Lee, Program Director at CaribNOG and CEO of US-based technology services firm, ArkiTechs.
CaribNOG 16 will be part of a five-day event called Internet Week, also supported by the Caribbean Telecommunications Union, the Internet Society, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), and Google.
The weeklong conference follows LACNIC’s recent announcement of its new partnership with Google to strengthen local Internet connectivity and build the digital entrepreneurship ecosystem across Central America and the Caribbean. “The experience is set to kick off during the second half of 2018 in three different countries: Dominican Republic, Guatemala, and Trinidad and Tobago,” a release from LACNIC said. In each country, LACNIC and Google plan to offer a two days of workshops on interconnection, entrepreneurship and digital marketing.
“For Google, this program complements our efforts and investments in Central America and the Caribbean, aimed at bringing our services closer to their users,” said Gabriel Recalde, Public Policy Manager for Central America and the Caribbean at Google.
In Trinidad and Tobago, the workshops are supported by the Ministry of Public Administration and Communications.
Check out this handpicked feature on Telecommunications Services of Trinidad and Tobago Limited.
