CKLN ICT WORKSHOP TO STRENGTHEN COLLABORATION PLANS FOR CARICOM AGENCIES

St. George's, Grenada, October 10- Representatives from CARICOM agencies will meet at the Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies in Barbados on October 10-11, 2013 for a workshop hosted by the Caribbean Knowledge and Learning Network, CKLN.

The workshop will focus on the Agencies' use of a major information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure called C@ribNET, in support of functional cooperation and collaboration. At the fifth meeting of the Secretary General of CARICOM and Heads of Community Institutions held in Georgetown, Guyana in July 2013, the meeting agreed that CKLN would host this workshop to better acquaint the agencies with C@ribNET and its potential.

The intention of the workshop is to bringing the CARICOM Agency Communities of Practice into being. Security, Disaster Risk Management and Health are but some of the communities of practice that will resonate with all CARICOM Agencies and Caribbean states.

The C@ribNET infrastructure connects all CARICOM countries and is connected to the world's research and education community. As such, it will enable not only the CARICOM agencies themselves, but their respective stakeholders throughout the region, to collaborate, share information, move large or confidential data and also enable teaching and learning across borders.

Through C@ribNET, communities of practice are being organised to implement priority applications supporting climate change, disaster management, crime and security, health and culture among others. CKLN is currently working with a number of pilot projects with institutions both within and outside of the region in the areas of health, culture, seismology and security.

At the workshop, the CARICOM agency participants will be sensitized to the benefits of establishing a Community of Practice as the operating principle for functional cooperation and collaboration amongst the regional agencies using C@ribNET. They will also review the functionalities and tools available on the C@ribNET portal, discuss and learn how to use them to enable and facilitate functional cooperation among agencies.

Ultimately, they will identify the processes, roles and responsibilities of each agency in support of the efficient operation of a CARICOM Agency Community of Practice supported by C@ribNET and develop a road map for bringing the CARICOM Agencies Community of Practice into being.

CKLN, itself a regional organisation established by the heads of government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), implemented C@ribNET in 2012 and launched it in February 2013. C@ribNET is a high capacity, dedicated broadband research and education network and enables Caribbean institutions to participate with the global family of research and education networks, some of which have been in existence for over 15 years.

C@ribNET was financed by a contribution of ten million euros by the European Union.

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