TECHNOLOGY, TEACHING & LEARNING
Ambassador Jackman. The student team of Jamaicans Shane Okukenu , Tevin Taylor and Ashray Soares along with Barbadians Joshua Alkins and Jason Charles worked on the project with Ambassador Jackman and Mr. Corey Archer who is Second Secretary of the Embassy of Barbados in Beijing. Now Permanent Representative of Barbados to the United Nations in New York, Ambassador Jackman stated he was so impressed with the work of the students that he would welcome the opportunity to work with them again. Seale, Assistant Registrar attached to UWICIIT, echoed the ambassador’s sentiments and praised the students for their diligence in creating such an efficient and critical system. “I feel a deep sense of fulfilment and gratitude for our civic-minded youth in developing this solution and for working steadily with the Government of Barbados in realisation of this project. The special mix of formal and informal training they have received in our programme, combined with the team’s innate tenacity and initiative, have produced talent which is vital to pursuing Barbadian interests. We clearly have a cadre of young, solution-oriented thinkers and doers in the Caribbean!” Seale said, adding that the team did not undertake the project for academic credit but solely as a means to give back to the Caribbean community.
beyond the scope of the Barbados Embassy in Beijing and is a key feature in the relaunch of the website of Barbados’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The BSc in Software Engineering programme is the flagship programme of The UWI China Institute of Information Technology . The institute was established in 2016 as a partnership of The UWI and the Global Institute of Software Technology (GIST) with a mission to produce a generation of software engineers for the Caribbean to support the region’s much-needed
His Excellency François Jackman Former Ambassador of Barbados to China
T he COVID-19 outbreak and subsequent government- created an urgent need for the database, and in quick response, the students worked tirelessly towards its completion in six months. “This initial spate of the pandemic magnified the need for a more efficient database of Barbadians abroad, and the initial scope of project was for all Barbadians travelling abroad to register with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs [MFA] to be easily reached in the event of an emergency,” Seale explained. According to the Assistant Registrar, not only was the database well received when it was handed over early in 2021, but it has since been expanded mandated lockdowns
digital revolution. Caribbean students spend their first two years of study at The UWI’s Cave Hill or Mona campuses then continue their final two years at GIST. Seale proudly shared that the programme has already proven useful to the region, even though relatively young, with this legacy project that is of benefit to the governments and people of the region. “The system is currently useful in service of the safety of the region’s citizens as we navigate the uncertainties of the world beyond our borders,” he noted. l
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