Information and Communications Technology (ICT) within the Caribbean needs to adopt a more strategic approach in order to become sustainable. This is the belief of ICT professional and BIM Ventures entrepreneur Andrew Jemmott, who stresses that new media equipment and software are simply tools to achieve an organisation’s strategic goals.

With that in mind, Mr. Jemmott, Managing Director of Caribbean Webcast Inc, facilitated a show and tell in February with students of the Errol Barrow Centre for the Creative Imagination of the University of the West Indies designed to show them the latest advances in film and new media production.

“We wanted the students to have an appreciation for the new technology that is available internationally, to realise that these things are only tools and that they need to acquire the knowledge to develop a strategic approach to the use of these technologies”, Jemmott stated.

The workshop gave the students a chance to interact with high-end digital equipment for modern media production that is not currently available at the University of the West Indies.

Attended by film students and lecturer Cabral ‘Larc’ Trotman, the workshop displayed the level of technology available in the Caribbean and the full extent of what can be accomplished once these tools are used strategically.

“We want to inspire the next generation of film-makers from the Caribbean to seek to continually improve the ICT tools used regionally.”

The students were encouraged to be creators and producers of the hard and software within this industry as Caribbean Webcast showed how crucial improvements can enable these tools to operate outside of their previous capabilities.

“I showed them how we made hardware and software improvements to enable the Canon 5B Mark 2 to be able to record film for internet or broadcast. By modifying the power input and the structure of the camera and building a cage around it together with some software changes to add features such as sound monitoring and light and tonal effects, we enabled the camera to be used for film production.”

• Caribbean Webcast Inc.

Caribbean Webcast Inc capitalises on the advances in new media by offering rich online content in the form of music videos, concerts, festivals, music, documentaries and more. The company aims to place the Caribbean’s culture and intelligence on the global stage through a cross cultural delivery of web content. Products such as digital marketing of live webcasts, streaming audio and video content, marketing materials, real time traffic reports, artiste licensing and digital distribution, a user profiles database and streaming platform development help Caribbean Webcast service the region’s technological needs.