Press Office

Santa Clara, CA – November 9, 2015: The Palisadoes Initiative of the Jamaica Diaspora Technology Task Force teams up with the Utcech IEEE Student Branch to expand its support of the island’s next generation of IT talent.

The collaboration is expected to produce a sustainable model for promoting Jamaica’s high tech capabilities through the participation of key stakeholders in academia, the diaspora, and both the Jamaican private and public sectors.

“I believe this Palisadoes Initiative is a great way to promote and foster both the growth and continuous development of the ICT Sector in Jamaica.” stated IEEE Student Branch Section Chair, Jordan Jones. “It will promote international standards such as version control while improving open source software collaboration skills in the local sector. This is a great opportunity for the Caribbean where foreign stakeholders will be exposed to our proven talent.”

“Palisadoes recognizes that Jamaica has a wealth of software development talent that has the potential to compete effectively in the global marketplace.” stated Peter Harrison, CTO and Co-founder of Colovore, and Task Force member. “Jamaica is exceptional in many areas of entertainment and sports, and we feel that the time has come for engineering to be equally respected.”

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 the Utech IEEE Student Branch

Like the IEEE, the branch’s core purpose is to foster technological innovation and excellence for the benefit of humanity. It is the first IEEE student branch to be registered in Jamaica and meets regularly to develop the young minds that will create a better Jamaica.

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.

Santa Clara, CA – September 20, 2015 – The Jamaica Diaspora Technology Task Force, a group of expatriate Jamaicans interested in assisting in the continued development new and existing technologies in Jamaica, met for the first time to plan the launch of the Palisadoes initiative. The initial focus is expected to be software engineering and is expected to branch out into other areas.

Initial members of the team include:

• Barry Williams – Quality Assurance Manager; Oracle USA
• Peter Harrison – Chief Technical Officer and Co-Founder; Colovore
• Kimone Gooden – Marketing Manager, Sales Enablement; Cisco
• Trevor Creary – Chief Technical Officer; Software Motor Corp
• Tennyson Williams – Senior Technical Project Manager; Comcast
• Devon Lewis – Owner; California IT Center
• Donna Gabbadon – VP, Operations; Informant Technologies, Inc.
• Craig Gabbadon – Chief Executive Officer; Informant Technologies
• Karl Chambers – President/CEO; Diligent eSecurity International
• Ingrid Riley – Co-founder & Lead Digital Strategist; getCONNECTiD

“This is a remarkable first step in creating a sustainable process to promote technology in Jamaica,” remarked Peter Harrison, CTO and Co-founder of Colovore, “We have been identifying strategies to implement this initiative for some years, it is very encouraging to see it come to fruition with such an exemplary team.”

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.