“Trinidad and Tobago is on the brink of a new chapter” The words of Minister of Energy and Energy Industries Stuart Young at the Ministry of Digital Transformation’s “National Digital Transformation Symposium 2025” on Wednesday.
As the world is quickly evolving, Trinidad and Tobago has to be ready to embrace digitization.
This according to Minister of Energy and Energy Industries Senior Counsel Stuart Young.
“It cannot be that when I travel to certain countries I have the staff at our consulates and our embassies telling me about problems that they have.
With persons in that country getting visas to enter Trinidad, Tobago and being unable to pay online for those visas. That is no longer acceptable, so we will move our ministries.”
At the symposium the National Digital Transformation Strategy for 2024-2027 was launched.
It aims to position Trinidad and Tobago as a leader in the digital era and outlines the government’s digitization strategies and the plans in place to achieve the goal.
The plan that was created by the people, for the people, aims to improve and enrich the lives of all citizens of Trinidad and Tobago.
The Ministry also launched an engagement platform “Engage.gov.tt”.
Minister of Digital Transformation Hassel Bacchus said the app allows citizens to be active participants in the digital transformation process.
“So its been built already, its been tested already. its been set already and we’re gonna start to use it so that all stakeholders have the opportunity to participate in the implementation and the roll out of a plan that was primarily of your own creation.”
Minister Bacchus acknowledged that connectivity is a key component of digital transformation.
He said anyone who does not have the technology readily available to participate in the engagement platform can do so through the ministry’s access centers.
“There are 18 access centers available now. We’re launching more every week. We have some next week. I know I just seen Minister De Nobriga there. We have some to do in his constituency. There are a number to be done in all areas of Trinidad and Tobago. We keep rolling them out. I expect by the time we finish the next couple of months, we’ll be up to about 30 something. Why is that important? Because those centers are places that you can go and they’re designed to be in places where connectivity and so on is a bit more challenging. You can go to those centers, you can get connectivity if you have a device. If you don’t have a device, there’s computers in there, laptops”
The Digital Transformation Minister is encouraging everyone to engage with the strategy and submit ideas and feedback.