The Tribune

CANTO, the Caribbean’s information and communications technology (ICT) organisation, highlighted the advance of women as a vital factor in the industry’s development during its 30th Annual Conference and Trade Exhibition.

The regional conference, which was co-hosted by the Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC), debuted its Caribbean Women in ICT (CWIC) programme at a breakfast at Atlantis, which focused on better engaging women in the region.

Spearheading the initiative was secretary-general Regenie Fraser, who stressed the important roles women play in ICT and their under-representation within the industry.

She said: “Over the years CANTO programmes for women in ICT have lacked formal structure. Therefore, we wanted to address the issues facing women in the industry in a more structured way. There is significant research indicating that women are underrepresented in the industry, and that those who enter the field do not stay.

“It was clear to CANTO that an ongoing forum was needed to solidify commitment to implement projects that will attract and encourage young women from the region to pursue careers in the ICT sector.”

Panel presentations were given by Patricia Walters, BTC’s senior vice-president of customer operations; Ingrid Seeratan, permanent secretary of science and technology for Trinidad and Tobago; Jennifer Britton, deputy programme manager, ICT4D CARICOM secretariat; Lisa Lewis, group projects director, Digicel; and Rhea Yaw Ching, corporate vice-president of sales and marketing, Columbus Communications.

BTC’s Ms Walters said one need only look at the statistics to see the forum was much needed.

“Recruiting and retention of women is an issue in the sector worldwide. Only 30 per cent of people employed in ICT at the entry level are women. At mid-level this drops to 15 per cent, and at the senior strategy and planning levels this drops again to 9 per cent,” she said.

“We, as leading women in the industry, have to find ways to keep women in the workforce. Women have lots of knowledge and experience that can be used to better the industry, and research shows that companies with gender diverse leadership make better decisions and higher profits.”

Ms Walters added that BTC was happy to join with CANTO, and had been addressing this issue in its own organisation.

“BTC doesn’t have a quota system, as we believe in promoting the best person for the job, but there has been a concerted effort to better incorporate women, especially in leadership positions.

“So what you are seeing evolve is jobs that were once perceived as male dominated now have many females in them. We are committed to our employee development, offering flexible technical training and e-learning suites to all employees, which women have been making fantastic use of. So we really look forward to partnering with CANTO as CWIC progresses.”

Ms Fraser aims to make the CWIC programme more than an annual forum, with plans to implement programming throughout the year.

“In the coming months we will more concretely define how we will govern this new aspect of CANTO. We received over 100 suggested programmes from the women at the launch, and we have convened a committee in conjunction with the CARICOM secretariat to decide exactly which commitments we will implement,” she added.