NEWSDAY · BitDepth1346 Narratio 21 - 03 - 2022

BitDepth#1346

MARK LYNDERSAY

AT THE TT Internet Governance Forum in January, three panelists discussed the human aspect of digital transformation and advocated for an approach that's driven from the ground up instead of being dictated from the top down.

Anthony Watkins began the conversation by noting the downside of technology adoption.

"For 149 people at a bank," Watkins said of news he read that morning, "digital transformation means that they are going home. Their families will be impacted. The people in the area and close to the zone of that particular bank will be impacted. The suppliers of goods and services to that bank will be impacted.

"Digital transformation is not a simple thing. It is a changing of the very architecture of business and governance. It is a change in the way we do things. This is not easy to do."

According to Kandyss Trancoso, founder of the financial literacy website thefinroute.com, the solution to the problem must come from the community, not from expensive consultants.

"Technology is there to enhance the lives of people, and sometimes we forget that human element in solving problems using technology," Trancoso said.

"Product design is about getting the requirements from stakeholders and the communities that you are willing to serve.

"Instead of pushing technology and seeing what needs to be done, you have the need (articulated) from the bottom up. There's no need to measure or test the market because the market has created the solution."

Master Christie-Anne Morris-Alleyne, the judiciary's court executive administrator, sees the problem as a customer service issue.

"Coming from the Public Service, as a participant and as a user, we are not strong on customer service," Morris-Alleyne said.

"We tend not to look at the other side of the desk, the other side of the counter, and when it comes to digital transformation, it's a question of which side we look at it from.

"We have done several things in the judiciary, and why we have been successful with those things is because we looked at them as a service and we decided to meet people where they were."

At least part of the problem in the Public Service, Morris-Alleyne noted, is a pervasive sense that good enou