February 11 - Cable & Wireless

This morning we met with a team of people from the legal and regulatory department of Cable & Wireless. Camella Rhone had put us in touch with Camille Facey, the head of the team. Cable & Wireless currently offers free Internet access to Jamaica's schools, so Ms. Facey had indicated that a project that included developing websites for those schools would be of significant interest to them. As opposed to our other presentations in which the main focus has been on engaging students with music, in this presentation we spent more time discussing the overall goals of the project, the web development/skyBuilders piece of the project, and our methods for progressing. Within a short time of beginning our discussion it ceased to feel like a pitch and started to feel like a strategy meeting: they definitely saw the advantages for C&W in getting involved with a project like this. It is clear that the group has significant strategic management/project development skills, and in addition they have a deep understanding of the situation here in Jamaica. As a partnership between the Berkman Center, C&W, the Ministry of Technology, and HEART we all saw that the project could grow to a successful nationwide, and possibly even anglo-carribean-wide project.

What we need to move forward on a larger scale at this point is the commitment of all of the necessary partners, some funding to lead some weekend-long trainings for others (ideally teachers in schools across the island) to become trainers in FruityLoops and skyBuilders, and a deal with FruityLoops that gives the program the ability to give site licenses for FruityLoops to each school involved in the program. With the support of Cable & Wireless, it seems that the government is much more likely to be willing to devote time and money resources to the project. Amazingly, the trickiest part seems to be the negotiation with FruityLoops, who to this point have been only minimally responsive to Wayne via email. I hope that when applied to in a more formal way with a clear, relatively large-scale proposal, FruityLoops will see the benefit to them of negotiating a deal with us for the licenses. As it stands, FruityLoops is in wide use here in Jamaica, and I venture to guess that the vast majority of the copies of the software currently running are pirated copies. It certainly seems to me that the chance to get in with kids as the primary beat-making tool and to make some money off the licenses in an area where the current norm is piracy, and finally to be participating in a philanthropic, innovative educational project should be very applealing to them. I guess we'll see.

On March 8th Cable & Wireless's monopoly over land lines in this country will end, marking the end of a long era in which they dominated all parts of the telecommunications industry. I'm entirely in favor of this change, as I see it as a necessity for major progress in IT in Jamaica. But I have to say, I was very impressed with the people I met at C&W today. They viewed this project as a way to increase Internet penetration and even computer sales, which seems sensible to me. They were also excited about the difference it could make for kids in this country. It was encouraging to see them being both business-minded and philanthropic. If we manage to build a partnership with them, the reach and effect of the project could grow far beyond what I had previously imagined. A truly exciting possibility.