TATT agrees to award $240,000 in ICT bursaries

The Telecommunications Authority of Trinidad and Tobago (TATT) has signed agreements to provide selected students with a total of $240,000 in bursaries to pursue studies in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) at the State's three tertiary-level education institutions.

TATT signed the agreements with the College of Science Technology and Applied Arts of Trinidad and Tobago (COSTAATT), The University of the West Indies (UWI) and the University of Trinidad and Tobago (UTT) on July 1.

In a statement released later that day, TATT said, "Under the agreement, TATT will provide bursaries to four students pursuing ICT-related degree programmes, at each of the three tertiary level institutions.

"The selected students will each be granted $10,000.00 (per year) by TATT based on their performance during the 2021/2022 and 2022/2023 academic years and financial status, in accordance with the Government Assistance for Tuition Expenses (GATE) programme."

TATT deputy chairman Dr Kim Mallalie, speaking at the signing ceremony, said the occasion marked "the start of a progressive partnership between TATT and local state tertiary education institutions that is certain to add fillip to the country’s future ICT human resource capacity."

She added, "Humans are behind technology development and most importantly it is humans who will use the technologies" and, as a result, TATT provided the bursaries to give tangible support to ICT students and, in turn, grow the complement of ICT professionals in TT.

TATT CEO Cynthia Reddock Downes noted that the authority was also celebrating its 18th anniversary on July 1.

She said, since its establishment in 2004, TATT was “always mindful of the fact that development of the telecommunications and broadcasting sector required the development of our people to utilise the technologies in their personal and corporate lives.”

She added that, within the last three years, the ICT sector's human resource capacity had accelerated to facilitate government’s pursuit of building and maintaining an enabling environment for digital transformation.

Also at the ceremony were: Ministry of Digital Transformation permanent secretary Richard Madray, COSTAATT vice-president Dr Helen Cumberbatch, UWI deputy principal Prof Indar Ramnarine, and UTT vice-president Prof Festus Addo-Yobo.