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For Jamaica to achieve developed status by 2030 the country must embrace an ICT-based strategy for national development requiring the infusion of ICT in all sectors of the economy. Based on successful ICT application elsewhere this will involve converting ICT infrastructure into knowledge-based applications that enable national strategies and targets needed to accomplish development objectives.
With Jamaica's economy struggling under the burden of the global recession as well as our own self-inflicted predicaments, the curent period presents an opportunity to launch initiatives that will provide the basis for transformation towards a more diversified, innovation-inducing, export-driven, and resilient economy. But can we summon the collective diligence needed to navigate the turbulent waters of a knowledgebased society and a global digital economy in search of the seemingly elusive prize of social and economic development? Our frequently articulated objective of achieving developed country status by 2030 is laudable. That milestone, however, requires a transformational agenda consisting of several pivotal components including the strategic planning and implementation of various convergent ‘projects’. That agenda includes overcoming potential inhibitors of development, namely, negative cultural predispositions, low resilience to social vulnerability, economic fragility and the underdeployment of the impressive stock of information and communication technologies (ICT) Jamaica has developed especially over the past decade.
About the Authors
Herman Athias is Business and Technology Consultant and Associate Teaching Fellow, Mona School of Business, UWI
Excecutive Director and Professor of Managaement Information Systems, Mona School of Business, University of the West Indies, Mona
