Open Government in Trinidad and Tobago

For this post I will simply refer to Trinidad as a shortcut for the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago.  Trinidad is located in the Caribbean and has a population of approximately 1.3 million people.  Roughly 40% of households, and 10% of mobile phones, have access to the internet.  Mobile phones, however, are everywhere.  A mobile penetration rate of roughly 140% makes it clear that most people have more than one phone.  However, smartphones are the exception, most people do not have Blackberries, Androids or iPhones.

While internet access may be lacking, Trinidad is very focused on delivering value to citizens.  This citizen-centric approach focuses on a number of items, including:

• Delivering services and information to citizens where they are and in ways they can easily consume.
• Delivering government services 24 x 7 x 365… anytime, anywhere.
• Reducing complexity in the forms citizens must complete.
• Providing safe, secure, and transparent systems.
• Focusing internal IT efforts on achieving economies of scale to achieve cost and time savings.

It is also worth noting that there is a quarterly survey asking approximately 3000 citizens how the government can do better.  The feedback from this survey, and from other feedback mechanisms, ensure that the government stays in step with the needs of its citizens.  Listening, engaging, and constantly improving.

To meet the goal of delivering information to citizens where they are and in a manner that they can consume Trinidad has invested in centralizing information and upgrading their infrastructure.  They have spent approximately $10 million US dollars for IBM hardware, software, and services to deliver a scalable web presence. 

Since the data is centralized they have also found it easier to deliver this content to other devices their citizens can use, including:

Buses

These travelling service centers reach citizens “where they are” and bring computers that extend the web presence to citizens that do not yet have internet access.

Kiosks

Trinidad is testing these new kiosks at four locations, as you can see on the slide above.  Again, the goal is to make government services available where citizens are, not forcing them to come into government offices.

Mobile Devices

As we have already noted, Trinidad is a mobile friendly location with a penetration rate of 140%.  We have also noted, however, that the percentage of users with internet access on their mobile devices is only about 10% of the whole and that smartphones remain the exception, not the norm.

The approach for mobile has focused on delivering a subset of features on mobile devices, focused on those services that make the most sense for these devices.  For example, long complex forms are not included but maps to office locations and links to information are included.

Trinidad is also delivering 311 style services (reporting of potholes, graffiti and the like) via their mobile interface.  They have not followed the same open 311 “standard” being used in the United States, instead, they are focused on following models being used in Singapore.  Why Singapore?  Singapore has been doing a great job in this area and, from a government perspective, has many of the same challenges.  Trinidad has been working closely with Singapore, as a mentor and a guide, in terms of defining their approach.

ROI?

No formal measurements are yet being made.  However, citizens are informally providing positive feedback about these services.

What’s next for Trinidad?

In terms of open government and e-services there is still a lot of work to do to further improve the areas we have already referred to throughout this post.  However, beyond these items, they also want to:

• Make use of single sign-on across all services.
• Convert e-services to m-services where feasible.
• Deliver more services with SMS, MMS, and BBM.
• Support mobile payments.
• Support citizen ideation and collaboration platforms.

Trinidad is moving forward with the citizen in mind every step of the way.  Internet access is increasing and smart phone use is growing and they are meeting this growing need.  They also realize that a technology divide does exist and they are meeting this challenge by bringing solutions to citizens via buses and kiosks.  They are remaining citizen centric,  job well done.