CAN­TO is poised to cel­e­brate a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone with its Con­nect and 40th An­nu­al Gen­er­al Meet­ing Cel­e­bra­tion sched­uled for Jan­u­ary 28 to 30 2024 at the Hy­att Re­gency, Port-of-Spain.

This year’s theme, “To­wards a Sus­tain­able Dig­i­tal Econ­o­my,” re­flects the ur­gent need for di­a­logue in the Caribbean on fin­tech, ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence and the evo­lu­tion of telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions com­pa­nies, ac­cord­ing to a state­ment from Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices of T&T (TSTT).

TSTT is not just a found­ing mem­ber of CAN­TO but has re­mained en­gaged with the or­gan­i­sa­tion from its in­cep­tion to help shape the Caribbean In­for­ma­tion, Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Tech­nol­o­gy in­dus­try.

Over the past 40 years, the tele­coms and tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny has worked with the CAN­TO in the spheres of En­vi­ron­men­tal, So­cial and Gov­er­nance (ESG), as well as in the de­vel­op­ment of poli­cies and projects to bridge the dig­i­tal di­vide and em­pow­er cit­i­zens of T&T to ben­e­fit from the Fourth In­dus­tri­al Rev­o­lu­tion.

The three-day con­fer­ence will fea­ture an ar­ray of thought lead­ers and busi­ness pro­fes­sion­als ex­celling in these ar­eas in the re­gion.

Tere­sa Wankin, sec­re­tary gen­er­al of CAN­TO Caribbean, not­ed, “This year holds spe­cial sig­nif­i­cance for us. We are thrilled to fo­cus on sus­tain­abil­i­ty. It is not just a buzz­word, but it is the bedrock of our en­dur­ing lega­cy. We are forg­ing ahead to­wards a sus­tain­able dig­i­tal econ­o­my.”

Wankin al­so recog­nised that col­lab­o­ra­tion has been one of the keys to the suc­cess of their work in the Caribbean, adding, “as a non-prof­it as­so­ci­a­tion, we’ve uni­fied op­er­a­tors, or­gan­i­sa­tions, and in­di­vid­u­als across the Caribbean and be­yond, lead­ing the charge for tech­no­log­i­cal ad­vance­ments with a glob­al per­spec­tive. Em­brac­ing part­ner­ships has been piv­otal in our jour­ney, and we re­main open to fos­ter­ing col­lab­o­ra­tions that dri­ve progress and in­no­va­tion.”

Mean­while, Ger­ard Coop­er, TSTT’s gen­er­al man­ag­er of Op­er­a­tions and Ad­min­is­tra­tion, has recog­nised the im­mense strides that CAN­TO has made over the past four decades.

Coop­er, who al­so serves as trea­sur­er for CAN­TO added, “The work of CAN­TO has been cru­cial in up lev­el­ling the many di­verse tele­com providers in the re­gion and LATAM and the di­verse mar­kets that they ser­vice. In just the past few years, CAN­TO has de­liv­ered ex­cit­ing projects that TSTT has been proud to sup­port in­clud­ing Women and Girls in ICT to close the dig­i­tal gen­der di­vide. CAN­TO has al­so of­fered im­mea­sur­able sup­port in the ar­eas of pol­i­cy and plan­ning while de­liv­er­ing the eCon­tent and eMar­ket­place ini­tia­tives and dozens of oth­er ed­u­ca­tion­al and trans­for­ma­tive projects.”

The event will con­clude with CAN­TO’s AGM on the third day with re­ports from the chair­man, sec­re­tary gen­er­al and oth­er se­nior of­fi­cers, the elec­tion of new of­fi­cers, and the pre­sen­ta­tion of its 2023/2024 bud­get by Coop­er.