Youth influencing technology

As THE country looks towards another 50 years of technological advances, a series of virtual town hall meetings are being planned for the youth.

Making this disclosure yesterday, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office with responsibility for Energy, Immigration, Telecommunications and Invest Barbados, Senator Darcy Boyce, said that the events would be targeted so young people “could say to us how they see the technology going, how they feel we ought to respond to that, and what role they can play in it”.

He insisted that it was critical to make decisions now while listening to the voice of the nation’s youth, as they were the island’s future.

With this in mind, the senator therefore lauded telecommunications company Digicel for launching the island’s first CoderDojo free coding club programme for 50 students.

While participants are currently from Eden Lodge Primary, Ellerslie Secondary and Queen’s College, Boyce insisted that all schools should benefit from such programmes, “so that every one of our children will learn how technology works and how to create businesses from the technology”.

Admitting that it would not be fair to allow the private sector to finance this burden alone, he suggested that it may be necessary to look at the Universal Service Fund to find support for this initiative.

“This Universal Service Fund is an arrangement where, for a very small fee attached to communications bills, that allows you to go into a dedicated fund for the public good in the telecommunications industry, so when you pay your phone bill, there may be a little cent or two that goes into funding the broadband support that schools would need to have,” Boyce explained.

He made the comments at Digicel’s head office in Warrens. (JMB)