Caribbean leaders push urgent digital transformation agenda

An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, reg­u­la­tors, tech­nol­o­gy ex­ec­u­tives and pri­vate sec­tor lead­ers end­ed the sec­ond an­nu­al Am­pli­fy Sum­mit with a strong call for the Caribbean to ac­cel­er­ate dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion to im­prove long-term eco­nom­ic re­silience and re­gion­al com­pet­i­tive­ness.

Host­ed by Lib­er­ty Caribbean, op­er­a­tors of Flow, Lib­er­ty Busi­ness and BTC, the sum­mit brought to­geth­er re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al stake­hold­ers un­der the theme “El­e­vat­ing the Caribbean’s Dig­i­tal Fu­ture”.

Through­out the event, dis­cus­sions fo­cused on prac­ti­cal strate­gies to strength­en con­nec­tiv­i­ty, mod­ernise dig­i­tal in­fra­struc­ture, scale in­no­va­tion, de­vel­op lo­cal tal­ent and sup­port sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic growth across the re­gion.

Top­ics in­clud­ed ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence, cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty, dig­i­tal pol­i­cy, re­silient in­fra­struc­ture, work­force de­vel­op­ment, cloud trans­for­ma­tion and the dig­i­tal mod­erni­sa­tion of tourism and pub­lic ser­vices.

Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer of Lib­er­ty Caribbean, Inge Smidts, said the re­gion must move be­yond dis­cus­sion and fo­cus on im­ple­men­ta­tion.

“The Caribbean has nev­er lacked tal­ent, re­silience, or am­bi­tion. What we re­quire now is align­ment, de­ci­sive ac­tion, and the courage to build for the fu­ture,” Smidts said.

“Dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion is no longer op­tion­al. It is fun­da­men­tal to eco­nom­ic growth, na­tion­al re­silience, and re­gion­al com­pet­i­tive­ness.”

Pres­i­dent and chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of Lib­er­ty Latin Amer­i­ca, Bal­an Nair, said stronger col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween gov­ern­ments and the pri­vate sec­tor would be crit­i­cal to build­ing re­silient dig­i­tal economies.

“The Caribbean stands at a piv­otal mo­ment where tech­nol­o­gy can be­come a pow­er­ful dri­ver of op­por­tu­ni­ty, in­clu­sion, and in­no­va­tion,” Nair said.

He added that long-term in­vest­ment and part­ner­ships would be nec­es­sary to cre­ate se­cure and fu­ture-ready dig­i­tal ecosys­tems across the re­gion.

Bar­ba­dos Min­is­ter of In­no­va­tion, In­dus­try, Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy, Jonathan Reid, warned that the pace of glob­al tech­no­log­i­cal change would not slow for the Caribbean.

“We must there­fore en­sure that our pol­i­cy frame­works, our ed­u­ca­tion sys­tems, and our dig­i­tal in­fra­struc­ture are aligned to pre­pare our peo­ple and economies for the fu­ture,” Reid said.

Deputy Prime Min­is­ter of Saint Lu­cia Ernest Hi­laire said dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion was al­so es­sen­tial for eco­nom­ic re­silience among small is­land de­vel­op­ing states.

“For small is­land de­vel­op­ing states, dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion is not sim­ply about mod­erni­sa­tion; it is about re­silience, sus­tain­abil­i­ty, and eco­nom­ic op­por­tu­ni­ty,” Hi­laire said.

Speak­ers through­out the sum­mit stressed that con­nec­tiv­i­ty alone would not be enough to se­cure the re­gion’s fu­ture com­pet­i­tive­ness. In­stead, they ar­gued the Caribbean must build broad­er dig­i­tal ecosys­tems ca­pa­ble of sup­port­ing en­tre­pre­neur­ship, in­no­va­tion, pub­lic ser­vice de­liv­ery and cri­sis re­silience.

Par­tic­i­pants al­so un­der­scored the need to in­vest in lo­cal tal­ent and equip Caribbean cit­i­zens with dig­i­tal skills need­ed to com­pete in the evolv­ing glob­al econ­o­my.

The 2026 Am­pli­fy Sum­mit fea­tured par­tic­i­pa­tion from re­gion­al gov­ern­ments, IDB In­vest, Guardian Hold­ings Lim­it­ed, Sagi­cor Bank, Ama­zon Web Ser­vices, SpaceX, Sier­ra AI and Am­docs.