Pro­duc­ing more lo­cal dig­i­tal con­tent re­mains one of the most ef­fec­tive means of in­creas­ing in­ter­net pen­e­tra­tion in any mar­ket. Lo­cal con­tent pro­duc­tion can al­so cre­ate sig­nif­i­cant op­por­tu­ni­ties and pos­i­tive­ly im­pact both so­cial and eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment.This was the view ex­pressed by Rhea Yaw Ching, cor­po­rate vice pres­i­dent�sales and mar­ket­ing at Colum­bus Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, at the Bright­Path Foun­da­tion Youth Tech­Camp.

"As the vol­ume of lo­cal con­tent in­creas­es, the In­ter­net be­comes more rel­e­vant and has a greater im­pact on im­prov­ing the lives of lo­cal com­mu­ni­ties," said Yaw Ching."While peo­ple in the Caribbean con­sume a sig­nif­i­cant amount of con­tent pro­duced out­side its bor­ders, they al­so want to in­ter­act with their news, their mu­sic, their im­ages, their ac­cents and even their is­sues in cy­ber­space."

She de­scribed lo­cal dig­i­tal con­tent as any com­mu­ni­ty's lo­cal­ly gen­er­at­ed, owned and adapt­ed knowl­edge and ex­pe­ri­ence, pack­aged and pre­sent­ed on­line.In the Caribbean, peo­ple are em­brac­ing the broad­band rev­o­lu­tion and us­ing the In­ter­net to con­nect so­cial­ly and ex­change knowl­edge in com­plete­ly new and ex­cit­ing ways. But rel­a­tive to the amount of for­eign con­tent avail­able, there re­mains a dearth of lo­cal con­tent on­line.

"As the cost of broad­band falls and more peo­ple go on­line, de­lib­er­ate steps have to be tak­en to en­sure that they are pre­sent­ed with ap­pro­pri­ate lo­cal con­tent," Yaw Ching said.Colum­bus has been on a pro­gramme to en­gage dig­i­tal con­tent de­vel­op­ers across the re­gion. The re­gion­al telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions provider re­cent­ly part­nered with Bright­Path Foun­da­tion, an in­ter­na­tion­al tech­nol­o­gy ed­u­ca­tion non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion, as part of its thrust to help pro­mote train­ing and ed­u­ca­tion in dig­i­tal con­tent cre­ation.

"We be­lieve that by sup­port­ing train­ing and ed­u­ca­tion in the cre­ation of dig­i­tal con­tent, more peo­ple will see the so­cial and eco­nom­ic val­ue in shift­ing from con­tent con­sumers to con­tent pro­duc­ers."How­ev­er, the chal­lenge fac­ing the re­gion is how to mi­grate the wealth of con­tent from the of­fline to the on­line world.

"If the Caribbean is to move on­line en masse, it needs to be pro­vid­ed with rea­sons to go there," Yaw Ching stat­ed. "This in­volves help­ing more peo­ple un­der­stand the busi­ness case as well as the so­cial val­ue of cre­at­ing new dig­i­tal out­lets for their con­tent."She added that Colum­bus is ac­tive­ly col­lab­o­rat­ing with con­tent providers across the re­gion to find new ways to ac­cel­er­ate the process of pub­lish­ing more lo­cal con­tent on­line.

"Whether in sto­ries, pic­tures, on­line videos, lo­cal ser­vices or mo­bile apps, we can move from be­ing a re­gion of con­tent con­sumers. We have the ca­pac­i­ty and mo­ti­va­tion to cre­ate con­tent that gives our peo­ple more rea­son to get on­line and seize the op­por­tu­ni­ties of the In­ter­net econ­o­my."