Bahamian Leaders Drive Digital Future

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PUNTA CANA – The Bahamas is helping shape the conversation about the Caribbean’s digital future.

At CANTO’s 41st annual conference in Punta Cana, Bahamian leaders are weighing how stronger digital systems, greater cybersecurity and local innovation can create real opportunities back home.

For more than four decades, the Caribbean Association of National Telecommunications Organizations, CANTO, has been helping to shape the region’s digital journey.

And this year, the conversation is moving beyond simply getting connected.

At CANTO’s 41st annual conference, the focus is on how the Caribbean can move from basic connectivity to global competitiveness.

In Punta Cana, industry leaders and policymakers are looking at what stronger networks, smarter policies and new partnerships could mean for people in their everyday lives.

Minister of Innovation and National Development Sebastian Bastian says the measure of success must begin with the everyday challenges citizens face.

Sebastian Bastian – Minister, Innovation and National Development

“I think for our citizens, we start with the end in mind. What are the pain points that they are having? We know them, some of them are known to us. And then what is the root cause of those? And fix those problems, utilizing technologies of today. It’s a lot easier today than it was a few years ago to implement certain functionalities within government systems. And modernizing government is a part of our mandate of our ministry, and that’s why this partnership is obviously important.”

Across the region, the push isn’t just about faster internet. It’s about trust, security and services people can actually feel in their daily lives.

From families to businesses, Minister of Justice and Digital Affairs in the Republic of Estonia Liisa-Ly Pakosta says the goal is making digital systems work better, faster and smarter for everyone.

Liisa-Ly Pakosta – Minister, Justice and Digital Affairs, Republic of Estonia

“That we have trustful cooperation within cybersecurity, but the most important thing that your citizens really feel that, yes, we get very efficient services very quickly, and the services get better and better so that we as citizens can really feel it. We, as companies, can really feel it that we have the possibility. And most importantly, that your kids will acknowledge that they have a bright future in your country because it is digitally advanced, and that gives them opportunities globally.”

Minister Bastian says for The Bahamas, success means more than adopting new tools. It’s about building capacity, protecting citizens and creating a digital economy where local talent develops the technology of tomorrow.

Sebastian Bastian – Minister, Innovation and National Development

“Success means it is just easier to do business in The Bahamas, period. Success looks like we are embracing the best of what these technologies have to offer while safeguarding privacy and protecting the vulnerable sides and the harm that some of these technologies can do. Success looks like not just importing technologies from all over the world, and being doctors of AI, but being developers and builders, so capacity building.”

Following that, Minister of Economic Affairs Jerome Fitzgerald, one of the keynote speakers at CANTO, echoed that vision, warning that convenience can sometimes mask dependency.

Jerome Fitzgerald – Minister, Economic Affairs

“I am describing a construct where digital colonization does not require a foreign flag over Government House. It requires only an arrangement in which Caribbean people generate the data, Caribbean governments purchase the systems, Caribbean consumers pay the subscriptions, and Caribbean land and energy host the infrastructure, while the intelligence, intellectual property, profits and governing authority reside and accumulate elsewhere.”

And as the Caribbean looks ahead, the message is clear: innovation must come with ownership.

For The Bahamas, it’s about shaping a digital future we control.