The Min­istry of Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go has signed to a Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing (MoU) fo­cussed on ad­vanc­ing the lo­cal cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty land­scape.

Wayne Nakhid, Na­tion­al Chief Dig­i­tal Of­fi­cer, MDT, “This MoU rep­re­sents a cru­cial step in en­hanc­ing cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty ser­vices in Trinidad and To­ba­go and high­lights our com­mit­ment to build­ing lo­cal tal­ent and ex­per­tise to pro­tect our na­tion’s dig­i­tal in­fra­struc­ture.”

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, the Min­istry ex­plained that the MoU will out­line sev­er­al key ini­tia­tives for col­lab­o­ra­tion, in­clud­ing: cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty cours­es: op­por­tu­ni­ties will be made avail­able, at no cost, to reg­is­tered mem­bers of the MDT’s D’Hub pro­gramme, to en­hance their skills in the high-de­mand field.

It will al­so pro­vide re­al world projects and in­tern­ships for stu­dents of the UTT, who will have ac­cess to more prac­ti­cal, in­dus­try-rel­e­vant ex­pe­ri­ence through part­ner­ships with MDT, en­sur­ing they are well-pre­pared for fu­ture ca­reers in cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly MDT and UTT will col­lab­o­rate on cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty re­search with an aim to dri­ve in­no­va­tion and de­vel­op­ing so­lu­tions that ad­dress re­al-world chal­lenges.

The sign­ing cer­e­mo­ny took place at UTT’s Tamana Cam­pus and was at­tend­ed by Pro­fes­sor Clé­ment Im­bert , chair­man of the board of gov­er­nors, UTT, and Cory Bel­fon, per­ma­nent sec­re­tary of the Min­istry of Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion as well as Pro­fes­sor Stephen Joseph, Pres­i­dent (Ag), UTT.

In his ad­dress to at­ten­dees, Pro­fes­sor Im­bert com­mend­ed the col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween MDT and UTT, and un­der­scored the role this part­ner­ship will play in bol­ster­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty ca­pa­bil­i­ties.

He ac­knowl­edged the re­cent suc­cess of the pi­lot col­lab­o­ra­tion of both en­ti­ties ear­li­er this year when the UTT de­liv­ered a live, in­struc­tor led train­ing course: "In­tro­duc­tion to Cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty" to the D’Hub com­mu­ni­ty. An av­er­age of 110 par­tic­i­pants at­tend­ed each ses­sion, with 91 per cent ex­press­ing sat­is­fac­tion with the pro­gramme, and 95% af­firm­ing that they would be will­ing to rec­om­mend it to oth­ers.