Montserrat’s drive towards a future powered by renewable energy will be shared with attendees of the Commonwealth Data Forum ’18 from February 21-23, at the University of Gibraltar in Gibraltar.
The Data Revolution: Maximising Opportunities and Managing Risks is the theme of the three-day conference sponsored in partnership with the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO) and  the Ministry of Economic Development, Gibraltar.
Hon. Minister of Communications, Works, Energy and Labour Paul Lewis will be part of a Day one panel on Monetising Data. The panel topic is Creating national opportunities for economic growth through big data.Â
The Forum will be a highly interactive platform with facilitated discussions on how data management can enhance economic and social change, and will examine how standards can assist change by determining regulation that will reduce breaches whilst ensuring compliance. The event is to be held before the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is put into effect in Europe and will assist the international audience get a clear understanding of the current policy, legal and regulatory issues as well as the market trends and available data solutions. The audience will comprise international policy teams, national regulatory bodies, legal firms, managers working within big data and data analytics, service providers and additional stakeholders with an interest in data compliance.
Focus areas are: Monetising data, Data ownership, Privacy, Security (particularly on social media), Legal and jurisdictional issues, and Data centres.
Cheaper energy on Montserrat will make the island a more attractive location to set up data centres which are needed to process the vast amount of information which humans generate daily. Developments in ICTs mean that more data is being captured than ever before. This data can be used for advances in business, science, healthcare, education and government, but the use of data poses challenges around storage, privacy and other legal issues.
