Good morning, everyone.

Our theme this year is “Engage. Execute. Evolve.” It’s more than a call to action—it’s a roadmap for how we, as a society and business community, must approach digital transformation.

I want to take a moment to thank the Ministry of Public Administration and Artificial Intelligence, as well as the Honourable Minister, Dominic Smith, and his team for agreeing to participate with us again today. We understand this is a new role and part of a reorganization of the Ministry, but we are optimistic that it will usher in a new era of engagement, both between citizens and the government, and businesses and the government. We look forward to working more closely with you and the team through your leadership. I hope you carry that message with you, please.

Over the course of this conference, as I tend to say each year, there are two central principles that guide our discussions at AMCHAM when we talk about technology and the need to accelerate digital transformation. First, we must start with the “why.” Why are we doing what we’re doing? What value are we creating for the individual and for the business?
From a government standpoint: What is the value being created in interactions with citizens? From a business perspective: How are we satisfying customers and growing revenue?

Today and tomorrow, we hope you will hear not about how AI and blockchain are coming, but about how they are already here.

You will hear from Ansa, for example, about how they’ve been using tools such as AI, low-code and no-code solutions to transform business processes. You will hear from Proman and how they’re using blockchain to certify carbon emissions in preparation for CBAM (Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism). You will also hear from Massy about how they’re transforming their company and the critical role data will play in their future.

We hope these stories will offer practical examples of how digital transformation is already happening—especially in the private sector—and how it can be expanded and accelerated.
Now, let’s spend a few minutes talking about what technology can do to improve our lives and enhance government services.

Let’s start with a simple one: Tax collection.

The principle must be that we cannot keep focusing only on those who are already compliant and simply try to extract more from them. We must widen the tax net. We can do this through technology both to identify leakage and to make voluntary compliance easier. Voluntary compliance significantly boosts revenue collection.

You’ve probably heard me say this before: something as simple as using GIS data that’s already available, overlaying it with taxpayer and business data to identify gaps, can lead to a significant and immediate expansion of the tax net. Once those gaps are identified, we can bring people into the system – not in a punitive way, but by offering an amnesty for past non-compliance, while ensuring future participation. It doesn’t have to be scary. It just has to be effective.

Then, of course, there’s crime, one of the most pressing issues we face as a country. If we want to diversify our economy, expand tourism, attract investment, and retain our talent—we must tackle crime.

We can use predictive analytics to prevent crime, AI and data to identify patterns, and link this with tax data and sales data to address both street-level and white-collar crime. It’s about prevention, disruption, and strategic enforcement at every level.

And now let’s talk about customs.

It’s time to modernize. Customs has three core functions: security, revenue collection, and trade facilitation. Yet, ask yourself—are we excelling in any of those areas today? The answer is likely no.

We need full automation of the clearance process. Airway bills should be uploaded, processed, and approved with one online submission. We need to implement Trusted Trader programs—approved economic operators who, based on proven compliance, are subject to fewer delays and inspections. This speeds up trade, increases revenue, and enhances national security.

Let’s connect this to another crisis – education.

We are in an education crisis in the Caribbean. Trinidad and Tobago is marginally better than our neighbours, but the statistics are still grim. Do you know what percentage of students who wrote CSEC in 2024 earned a full certificate – including Math and English? Just 45%.

And that’s only among those who made it to the exam. We haven’t even factored in dropout rates from primary to secondary school.

Yet we speak of a "brave new world" and digital transformation. These things cannot coexist with a broken education system.

We must urgently implement adaptive learning—tools like Khan Academy already exist. These help students engage in learning that responds to their strengths and weaknesses.
We also need to rethink curriculum flexibility. Requiring students to follow a rigid academic structure—5-10 subjects over 5 years with little room for exploration—is not preparing them for the future. Learning isn’t just about passing exams. It’s about acquiring knowledge and learning to think critically.

And to achieve all of this, we must elevate the status of teachers.

Teachers have to be some of the most prized people in our society. It has to be one of the professions that is most sought after, most respected, best paid. That means that we have to concurrently have the ability to discipline teachers who do not do what they have to do and to work with the unions to create the right environment to ensure that teacher evaluation is done effectively. 

We should also be using data in schools. Of course, there are privacy concerns, but the data in schools do track teacher and student attendance so that we can see where students are starting to deviate from their pattern, particularly when they're starting to stop coming to school, so that we can have our social interventions targeted to ensure that we are taking care of our children before they become vulnerable to other temptations. These are simple things we can do today. It's not the future, it's not hard. We could start with a few schools; we can start with the schools that need it most. 

Let me turn now to the technology sector.

We believe that technology is not just an enabler, it’s also a sector in its own right, and a powerful tool for economic diversification.

And we really believe that working with partners such as the United States and others, we have the Indian Prime Minister coming in two day's - India's technology sector is a booming sector of the economy and there's a lot that we're doing on the government level and at the level of the private sector.

We are firmly of the view at AMCHAM T&T that employing a strategy of nearshoring that we can develop a viable  in Trinidad and Tobago, Global Tech zone that will make Trinidad and Tobago known as a center of excellence in some aspects of technology and be able to attract the investment to do that.

We are already seeing growth in call centers, fintech, health tech, and more advanced back-office services like accounting and finance. But we must push further – and higher – into the tech value chain.

To do that, Minister, we would like to work closely with your Ministry and the Ministry of Trade to design and execute a nearshoring strategy. This would help us attract high-value tech jobs, enable brain circulation, and create opportunities for our people.

We have a skilled diaspora – Trinbagonians in leading roles in major tech firms abroad. Many of them want to give back. But we need policies, like a Digital Nomad Visa, to allow them to live and contribute here in meaningful ways.

There is so much we can do – and we must act now.

Over the next two days, we will be talking more about these issues – about AI, data, government transformation, and the future we want to create. We won’t just dream it –we will design it, build it, and live it.

Because the future is not a destination – it’s a decision we make today.

The best time to act was yesterday. The next best time is now.

So welcome again to T.H.I.S. 2025. I look forward to the engaging conversations we will share throughout the conference.

Thank you very much.

END.