Amcham tech summit to focus on cybersecurity

For the first time in seven years the American Chamber of Industry and Commerce (Amcham) will feature panels on cybersecurity in its Tech Hub Island Summit (THIS) carded for June 29-30 at the Hyatt Regency in Port of Spain.

Amcham TT CEO Nirad Tewarie, during the launch of the summit at Republic Bank's head office on Park Street, said the conversation was an important feature connected to the summit's theme: “Catapult – accelerating digital transformation.”

He said, “We thought, as we were talking about the advances in the deployment and utilisation of tools such as AI and companies that might be thinking of building their tech infrastructure, that we will have a session that focuses on how do you build that out, whether you're a tiny company or very large one, taking into account security and, therefore, cybersecurity.”

He added that it was critical for businesses to consider the safety and risks involved in advancing through digital transformation.

“In anything we do, including the deployment of technology, there will be some risks, but there are ways to mitigate the risk.

“We can never eliminate 100 per cent of the risk but we can mitigate. And we hope that this panel within the conference will help companies harden themselves as they become more digitally transformed.”

THIS summit is a networking, education and tech summit that brings together the greatest leaders and talents in the region’s tech scene to collaborate and understand the potential applications of tech in the business sectors.

Everyone from start-ups to multi-national companies, to government agencies, investors and tech gurus will be present at this year’s THIS.

This year, speakers will include Lauren Razavi, executive director of Plumia which is the global mobility think tank that has raised $50 million in venture capital to build a global social safety net for digital nomads; Kiki Del Valle, executive vice president, market development - Latin America and Caribbean for MasterCard; Lesley Hernandez, head of issuance ecosystem enablement, Central America and the Caribbean at Visa Inc; Dharmendra Sahay, managing principal at ZS Associates; and Stephanie LeBlanc-Godfrey, global head of community inclusion programmes for women of color at Google.

Tewarie said, “THIS is not a tech event for techies. THIS is not a tech event for start-ups. It is not a tech event for the CIO and the CTO and the people in the IT department or whatever you choose to call it now in your company. THIS is an event for leaders to understand what's happening in digital transformation, so that you can lead and deploy these things effectively and it is an event for the start-ups to connect with these leaders.”

“THIS is an event for anybody who understands and appreciates that technology is an integral part of our future as a person and in our businesses.”