A Different Kind of Network for Columbus

Partnerships make good business” and local entities are in for a novel approach to nation building as Columbus Communications, St. Lucia Limited introduces its Columbus Partnership Network (CPN), an initiative developed to drive community and national development through pooling resources for greater impact.

At the official launch of Columbus Saint Lucia on Thursday, July 10th, 2014 themed “One People, One Passion, One Purpose,” at the St. James Club, Morgan Bay, Country Manager Jesse Edwards announced the newly developed alliance programme that speaks to a very involved corporate citizenship.

In explaining the CPN concept, Jesse noted: “As corporate conscious citizens, we contribute to educating people’s understanding that having access to the technology is just part of the journey and what makes the journey far-reaching is to understand how we utilize this technology to make any person, this island, this region, no matter our size, competitive on any level. Ultimately, we wish to leave a legacy that transforms the country in which we work. CPN is an inspired programme, designed to connect businesses, all of which are in strategic partnerships with Columbus, to form mutual education, training and networking benefits.”

Columbus St. Lucia is the first to launch the CPN, which over time will become a regional initiative. In view of such, Columbus acknowledged five (5) entities who have been working alongside the company to roll out community building activities. They include:

InTime Education Television (ITEV), a not-for-profit, registered Charitable Trust that airs education content for all viewers and available to all primary schools island-wide through the donation of large screen televisions and computers;

The Ministry of Education who partnered with Columbus St Lucia in a pilot project to provide dedicated internet access of 5mbps to the Ciceron Secondary school for Wi-Fi coverage of the classrooms, computer lab, staff room; St. Lucia National Youth Council, a democratic and independent non-governmental organisation of over 150 youth and student organisations which represents the interest and ideals of Saint Lucia’s young people;

Mr. Bevil Wooding of the BrightPath Foundation, who is an Internet Strategist that has designed, developed, and implemented ICT solutions. He is also one of seven people in the world entrusted by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names & Numbers with a special cryptographic ‘smart-card’ that holds part of a key used to generate the Domain Name Server Security Extensions protocol that protects Internet domain names. Columbus and BrightPath has partnered across the region presenting TechLink – learning sessions designed to provide new opportunities for countries to leverage information and communications technologies for social empowerment and economic development. TechLink St Lucia will take place this Saturday, July 12, 2014 at the Ciceron Secondary school with selected youth, creative industry members as well as small business persons to learn more about how digital photography, digital music and mobile app development can enhance their business or interests – a prime example of how the CPN can work;

The Caribbean Telecommunications Union, an organisation dedicated to facilitating the development of the regional telecommunications sector as well as working with Caribbean intergovernmental agencies for capacity building, knowledge sharing, education and policies for Internet governance within the Caribbean.

Columbus Telecomm-unications and its brands are committed to demonstrating good corporate citizenship; the company strives to promote learning through technology and resource capacity building and led by its mission statement “Don’t predict the future, enable it,” which it uses as the driving force behind its corporate social responsibilities and commitment to enable nation building through community development and the development of social assets.