For the first time in its 17 years of staging conferences, the Jamaica Computer Society was joined this year with the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Technology to stage this year's National Information Technology Conference in Ocho Rios, St. Ann.
Industry, Commerce and Technology, Minister Phillip Paulwell, told the participants in great detail about the strategies and efforts to realise implementation, regulatory framework and job creation. This was manifested at the recently launched high tech Post Office in Linstead, St. Catherine which now boasts an Internet kiosk, Paymaster connection and the Jamaica Lottery.
The conference's exposition was officially declared open by Enrique Perezyerez, regional manager of Informix. He also gave the keynote address at the banquet outlining many practical tips on leading technologies to aid implementation.
Among the presentations was one from Senator Dale Marshall from Barbados on e-commerce, is value and importance to the Caribbean. Senator Marshall questioned whether the region was going to "be a part of the brave new world" or whether e-commerce will "leave us behind as we have been left behind so many times in our history?"
Data security and protection of Web sites for e-commerce were examined in detail by Jamaican Richard Hudson, vice-president and data security officer from the Industrial Bank of Japan.
Several presentations were made on e-governance, case studies on e-commerce, e-banking and the relevance of intellectual property to the information age by Dianne Daley.
