Eight pan yards will open their own tech­nol­o­gy cen­tres soon, cour­tesy the Dig­i­cel Foun­da­tion and Pan Trin­ba­go.

Al­ready hubs of youth ac­tiv­i­ty, these pan yards can look for­ward to in­clud­ing a com­put­er lab and ex­pand­ing their af­ter-school pro­grammes and oth­er youth en­gage­ment ac­tiv­i­ties, Dig­i­cel Foun­da­tion has con­firmed in a re­lease. 

Ear­li­er this year, the Dig­i­cel Foun­da­tion part­nered with Pan Trin­ba­go to is­sue a call for reg­is­tered Steel­bands to ap­ply for one of four op­por­tu­ni­ties to trans­form a space in their pan yard in­to a Tech­nol­o­gy in Ed­u­ca­tion (TIE) Cen­tre. 

Four Steel­bands have been se­lect­ed to trans­form their spaces in­to TIE Cen­tres: NL­CB Fon­claire Steel Or­ches­tra; Val­ley Harps Steel Or­ches­tra; Trinidad All Stars Co-op­er­a­tive So­ci­ety Lim­it­ed; and T&TEC Trop­i­cal An­gel Harps Steel Or­ches­tra.

For World Steel­pan Day in Au­gust, Pan Trin­ba­go nom­i­nat­ed the Pan-De­mo­ni­um Steel Or­ches­tra, Katzen­jam­mers Steel Or­ches­tra, Curepe Scherzan­do Steel Or­ches­tra and the Cou­va Joy­lan­ders Steel Or­ches­tra for TIE Cen­tres.

“Over the next few months, the Dig­i­cel Foun­da­tion team will be on the ground trans­form­ing these eight pan spaces in­to Tech­nol­o­gy in Ed­u­ca­tion Cen­tres, through an in­vest­ment of TT$540,000,” Dig­i­cel Foun­da­tion re­vealed.

It added: “Each space will be up­grad­ed and out­fit­ted with five desk­top com­put­ers, a print­er, ex­ter­nal speak­ers, com­put­er desks and chairs.”

Dig­i­cel Foun­da­tion says its de­ci­sion to use a ‘pan yard’ mod­el for the 2023 TIE Pro­gramme fol­lows the suc­cess of its part­ner­ship with the To­ba­go Pan­thers Steel Or­ches­tra last year.

The To­ba­go Pan­thers of­fers a home­work cen­tre and sev­er­al af­ter-school pro­grammes, sup­port­ing as many as 30 chil­dren dai­ly. It has been cred­it­ed with trans­form­ing the prospects of at-risk youth in the com­mu­ni­ty.