Engineering Key to Jamaica’s Digital Transformation and Bureaucratic Efficiency – Minister Marks

Engineering is pivotal to transforming Jamaica into a truly digital society and streamlining its bureaucratic systems, according to Minister without Portfolio in the Office of the Prime Minister with Responsibility for Efficiency, Innovation and Digital Transformation, Senator the Hon. Ambassador Audrey Marks.

“Bureaucratic reform is an engineering challenge, just as much as a political one; and right here at UWI Mona, we have the talent to meet it,” Ambassador Marks said.

She delivered the keynote address during Thursday’s (June 5) inaugural Mona Engineering Project Expo at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona, St. Andrew.

The expo was held under the theme ‘Ideas in Motion: Where Engineering turns Vision into Reality’.

Ambassador Marks said it is her sincere belief that fostering a culture of innovation is essential to building Jamaica’s future.

“We must be eager to use those engineering technologies that flow from innovation to change government and the private sector,” she stated.

Meanwhile, Senator Marks urged the Faculty of Engineering and staff to collaborate with the Government in establishing an innovation hub.

She noted that this will complete the process, by helping the final-year engineering students to monetise their innovations.

Ambassador Marks emphasised that engineering graduates have a secure future ahead.

“You can build your own business and the innovation hub will help with that. There’s a demand from our private-sector companies, and there is also the emerging outsource engineering business that I’m very excited to support,” she said.

Among the projects displayed by students in the areas of civil, biomedical, electrical and electronic engineering was an artificial intelligence (AI) follow-me system for classrooms, a computer vision system for early detection of diabetes, a gesture to audio smart glove, a wide area text communication system to be used during emergencies and using seawater for crop irrigation.

Dean of the Faculty, Dr. Adrian Lawrence, shared that the students used the knowledge and skills gained over the course of their respective programmes to design and innovate solutions to real-world problems.

He noted that the faculty adheres to the fundamental guiding principles of the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) to oversee and ensure the quality of teaching and learning in preparing students for their final-year projects.

“I get especially excited at this time of year, because it is when I get a chance to interact with our students and listen to them explain their problem statements and how they approach developing their solutions.

“I get to hear the pride in their voices and see it in their faces when they tell the stories of the many failures, the burnt wires, the exploded diodes and resistors, the crashed computers on the last minute and, of course, Murphy and his law, and their perseverance in figuring out the way forward when all of these things conflate, and conspire to put them back,” Dr. Lawrence said.