Santa Clara, CA – October 10, 2015 – The Jamaica Diaspora Technology Task Force, Palisadoes Initiative has begun work with the UWI Computing Society to develop a viable strategy to create technology prizes recognizing significant participation in open source projects.
Work has started on framework documents outlining the scope of the initiative, its goals, criteria for success, tutorial resources and participant expectations.
“Work is progressing steadily. The UWI Computing Society was one of the few technology industry organizations that immediately saw the value of Palisadoes and has done a remarkable job of planning various projects in spite of their school workloads,” commented Peter Harrison, CTO and Co-founder of Colovore, and Task Force member. “We have seen growing interest from other industry participants in contributing to the first draft of the framework. In order to get things right we are taking a slow-rolling approach with increasingly broader cross sections of stakeholders in the industry. These past few weeks have been very encouraging.”
Shane Richards, President of the UWI Comuputing Society concurred, “Palisadoes has the capability of putting Jamaica’s ICTs on the map by sparking interest in computer science. Being a platform for building competencies among students, we, the UWI Computing Society required little convincing of how of much of a positive impact, the success of this project could have on a developing country such as our own.”
“The Palisadoes project has the potential to be a huge platform for the technical and professional development of technology students all over Jamaica. We are sharing the collective knowledge of the Computing Society in hopes of achieving this objective as early as this first iteration. Presently we are exploring different ways to ensure that all participants will be well equipped to benefit from this opportunity”, commented Alexander Nicholson, PRO of the UWI Computing Society.
The first projects are expected to begin in 2016 through various partnerships in Jamaica and the rest of the world.
About the Palisadoes Initiative
The Palisadoes initiative aims to provide new avenues to promote Jamaica’s technology businesses and talent using a series of programs aimed at creating increased awareness of the island’s abilities in the global marketplace.
About UWI Computing Society
The vision for this society is to become a launching pad for the development and exposure of the computing students of the University of the West Indies, with particular focus on undergraduate students. This Society is also envisioned to be a medium by which the university population and the wider society may become more computer literate as well as educated in the efficient use of ICT in the industry and the wider society.