Cuba ICT Session Includes Exclusive Research from NSAM

Cuba’s ICT outlook will be the subject of a special session at next week’s Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) “Network of the Future” conference in Dallas, and among the expert speakers at the gathering will be Kirk Laughlin, Managing Director at Nearshore Americas, who will highlight exclusive new research on the country’s formative IT and Internet roadmap.

The four-day conference attracts leading policymakers and communications industry executives, many of whom have begun analyzing Cuba as a new frontier for ICT given the special exceptions authorized by President Obama in December, permitting direct investment in Cuba telecommunications. As a result, the TIA – representing many of the world’s largest telecommunications providers and equipment vendors – has accelerated its focus on Cuba given the groundswell of interest from member  companies.

“From the first moment President Obama announced the rapprochement with Cuba, there has been lots of curiosity about Cuba’s prospects as an IT and BPO hub, and of course telecommunications and Internet infrastructure is an incredibly important variable impacting  its future,” says Laughlin.

The TIA session will be held in a breakfast-briefing format on June 4^th at the Dallas Hyatt Regency. Taly Walsh, TIA’s vice president of networking and intelligence says about Cuba: “An opportunity now exists to leap over five generations of telecommunications technology and build out a modern, robust system.” In addition to addressing the opportunities, the session speakers will also look at the challenges – from Congressional action to regulatory ambiguities. In addition to Laughlin, the session will feature Dr. Margaret Crahan, Senior Research Scholar and Director, Cuba Program, Columbia University Institute for Latin American Studies, as well as Timothy Finton, Senior Counselor for International Communications and Information Policy, U.S. Department of State.

Nearshore Americas’ Cuba ICT analysis is ongoing – a survey of Cuba IT professionals commenced last week, and researchers – including experts based in Cuba – are still gathering information that will provide crucial insights on the path the country is expected to take around nurturing a tech services industry. “Before there is real debate about the merits of Cuba’s ‘candidacy’ as Nearshore tech player, we believe strongly that facts and data need to be presented first, in order to then have a reasoned discussion. That is the real purpose of our research –which will be unlike anything we’ve done previously at NSAM,” said Laughlin. The research study will also be the focus of a free online webinar, currently scheduled to take place in July.

For more information and to register for TIA’s Network of the Future Conference, visit this page.