GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

Min­is­ter of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment, Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, said yes­ter­day while da­ta can be in­stru­men­tal to growth and na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment, there are neg­a­tives when da­ta is mis­han­dled or not ef­fec­tive­ly man­age.

Speak­ing at the Unit­ed Na­tion’s T&T Big Da­ta Fo­rum, which was held at the Hy­att Re­gency yes­ter­day, Beck­les not­ed that da­ta pro­tec­tion is es­sen­tial for eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment, be­cause ef­fec­tive da­ta pro­tec­tion laws and reg­u­la­tions ad­vance cit­i­zens’ trust in dig­i­tal tools and elec­tron­ic sys­tems through the in­te­gra­tion of rights and pro­tec­tions against the mis­use of their per­son­al da­ta.

Beck­les not­ed that im­ple­men­ta­tion of smart-na­tion in­fra­struc­ture por­tends a wealth of da­ta for analy­sis and util­i­ty to pro­vide nu­mer­ous plat­forms and so­lu­tions for build­ing pros­per­i­ty in every facet of en­deav­our.

She said AI goes hand in hand with big da­ta, be­cause of its use of al­go­rithms to ex­tract rel­e­vant da­ta for analy­sis from huge vol­umes at rapid rates.

Not­ing that da­ta and an­a­lyt­ics are al­ready be­ing used by busi­ness­es to pre­dict what cus­tomers want, the min­is­ter said in vir­tu­al­ly every area of the econ­o­my, big da­ta analy­sis of­fers valu­able in­sights that can be ap­plied to boost pro­duc­tiv­i­ty.

“In tourism, for ex­am­ple, de­scrip­tive an­a­lyt­ics of re­al-time and his­tor­i­cal cus­tomer da­ta can help re­duce costs and im­prove fore­cast­ing ac­cu­ra­cy of ho­tel oc­cu­pan­cy.

“In trans­porta­tion, traf­fic grids, con­ges­tion, and com­muter da­ta can pro­vide au­thor­i­ties with in­sights to de­sign­ing so­lu­tions that im­prove traf­fic flow and re­duce man hours lost to traf­fic, in­clud­ing iden­ti­fy­ing just by an analy­sis of pat­terns of mo­bile phones’ ge­o­graph­i­cal po­si­tions, places where the road sur­face needs to be re­paired,” Beck­les ex­plained.

There­fore, she em­pha­sised that big da­ta ap­pli­ca­tions are vi­tal for lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form and the work of mu­nic­i­pal au­thor­i­ties.

Al­so speak­ing at the fo­rum was Joan­na Kazana, Unit­ed Na­tion’s res­i­dent co-or­di­na­tor, who said many de­vel­op­ing coun­tries are at risk of be­com­ing mere providers of raw da­ta while hav­ing to pay for the ser­vices that their da­ta help to pro­duce.

She said the in­no­va­tion di­vide is be­com­ing even more stark.

“Dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies have moved be­yond the In­ter­net and mo­bile de­vices in­to au­tonomous in­tel­li­gent sys­tems and net­works, gen­er­a­tive ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence, vir­tu­al and mixed re­al­i­ty, dis­trib­uted ledger tech­nolo­gies (such as blockchain), dig­i­tal cur­ren­cies and quan­tum tech­nolo­gies,” she ex­plained.

Kazana al­so not­ed that the wealth gen­er­at­ed by these in­no­va­tions is high­ly un­equal, dom­i­nat­ed by a hand­ful of big plat­forms and states.

“Dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies are ac­cel­er­at­ing the con­cen­tra­tion of eco­nom­ic pow­er in an ever-small­er group of elites and com­pa­nies: the com­bined wealth of tech­nol­o­gy bil­lion­aires, US$2.1 tril­lion in 2022, is greater than the an­nu­al gross do­mes­tic prod­uct of more than half of the group of 20 economies,” the UN res­i­dent co-or­di­na­tor fur­ther ex­plained.

She said be­hind these di­vides is a mas­sive gov­er­nance gap, adding that new tech­nolo­gies are lack­ing even ba­sic guardrails.

“Be­cause such dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies are pri­vate­ly de­vel­oped, Gov­ern­ments are con­stant­ly lag­ging be­hind in reg­u­lat­ing them in the pub­lic in­ter­est. As a re­sult of decades of un­der­in­vest­ment in state ca­pac­i­ties, pub­lic in­sti­tu­tions in most coun­tries are ill equipped to as­sess and re­spond to dig­i­tal chal­lenges.

“Very few can com­pete with pri­vate com­pa­nies to har­ness tal­ent and of­fer in­cen­tives to dig­i­tal­ly skilled peo­ple to work in the pub­lic sec­tor,” Kazana said.

She added that pub­lic ad­min­is­tra­tions are be­ing hol­lowed out at the time that they are most need­ed to sup­port safe and eq­ui­table dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tions.