Grenadian Prime Minister and Caricom’s lead Head of Government on ICT the Honourable Dickon Mitchell delivered a forward-leaning keynote at the 40th Annual CANTO Conference and Trade Exhibition, calling for urgent regional alignment on spectrum, cybersecurity, cloud systems, and digital identity.
Addressing hundreds of delegates at the Grand Hyatt Baha Mar in The Bahamas, Mitchell framed the Caribbean’s digital journey as a defining moment of self-determination. “We are not simply digitising our societies, we are shaping the Caribbean’s place in the world,” he told the packed hall of government leaders, regulators, operators, and technologists. “The question is not whether we will participate in the global digital economy, but how and on whose terms.”
In outlining Grenada’s national digital strategy, built on 5 pillars of digital government, infrastructure, identity, economy, and inclusion, Mitchell described his government’s efforts to modernise public services, deploy resilient connectivity, and enable citizens to access secure digital ID systems.
Prime Minister Mitchell made clear that no island could go it alone. “Grenada’s efforts are part of a broader regional ambition: the creation of a Caricom Single ICT Space, a unified digital ecosystem enabling seamless movement of people, services, and data across borders.”
He outlined 6 priority areas requiring immediate collective action:
- Spectrum and regulatory harmonisation
- Cross-border digital identity recognition
- Federated cloud infrastructure for regional data sovereignty
- Infrastructure sharing to reduce redundancy and cost
- Smart city and fintech readiness
- Cybersecurity and AI frameworks tailored to SIDS
Mitchell cautioned against passive adoption of global technologies, calling instead for “cost-effective, vendor-neutral” approaches that keep sovereignty and sustainability at the centre.
To the region’s telecom operators and digital service providers, he issued a clear challenge: to evolve from service providers to strategic partners. “Your success is tied to the prosperity of the societies you serve,” Mitchell said. “Governments cannot do this alone. We need a full and active private sector committed not just to service delivery, but to co-investment, policy shaping, and digital equity.”
He also urged Caribbean governments to embrace innovation more boldly and to accelerate capacity building for public sector teams, especially in regulatory and engineering fields.
Mitchell’s address reflected CANTO conference’s 2025 theme, “Towards a Unified and Sustainable Caribbean Gigabit Society,” and underscored the importance of coordinated investment in future-ready infrastructure such as 5G, Open RAN, and satellite broadband for disaster resilience and rural access.
In one of the most vivid moments of his speech, Mitchell painted a picture of what a digitally unified Caribbean might look like by 2030: cross-border health systems, roaming-free connectivity, and regional fintech startups scaling without regulatory friction. “A nurse in St Vincent accesses a Grenadian patient’s records. A Dominican fintech company launches in Jamaica. A student in Barbuda logs on after a hurricane via satellite broadband. These are not dreams. This is the Caribbean we must build,” he said.
Prime Minister Mitchell closed with a call-to-action worthy of CANTO’s 40-year legacy. “Let us build a Caribbean where every citizen has the access, tools, and confidence to participate fully and securely in the digital age.”
His message, part policy blueprint, part regional rallying call, encouraged further conversations among delegates already focused on how to future-proof the region’s digital transformation. It affirmed Grenada’s growing leadership in regional ICT and injected timely urgency into CANTO’s mission of shared progress.”
CANTO
The first rule of communication is knowing your audience. While I applaud the underlying goals of this effort I must say the lofty vocabulary and repeated use of jargon and acronyms renders the article almost unintelligible.