 Welcome to the official launch of Skill 758 Mobile, web browser, mobile app and web browser. Of course, before we begin, I want to say I'm Krista Sainterge, your mistress of ceremony, and we're going to be recognizing some of our distinguished guests. We have with us today, present Honorable Ken Sanjay Kazimir, Minister of Youth Development and Sports, Mr. Leslie Mondaysi, Attorney General of the Attorney General Chambers, Board of St. Lucia National Lottery's Authority, Mrs. Sherilyn Monrose-Gustav, Chief ICT Officer, Division of Public Sector Modernization, Mr. Elsie Lafayé, Director of Commerce, Mrs. Selma St. Pre, Manager of National Skills Development Center, Alfred Emmanuel, President of St. Lucia Olympics Committee, Mr. John Victorin, St. Lucia Social Development Fund, Mrs. Phelps Feely, Chief of Party Youth Resilience and Inclusive Empowerment, Ms. Caroline Eugene, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Youth Development and Sports, Ms. Mary Wilfred, Deputy Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Youth Development and Sports, Mr. Rouhan Loubon, Director of Youth, Ministry of Youth Development and Sports, Staff of Ministry of Youth Development and Sports, GIS Team at Media Houses, Representatives of other government ministries, members of the private sector, young entrepreneurs, invited guests. Of course, thank you all for joining us and once again, welcome to the formal and official launch of skilled 758 web browser and mobile app. We begin this morning's proceedings with the opening prayer by Ms. Kezia St. Bryce. Is it all? Catholics, please sign yourselves. 11 gracious Father, thank you for bringing us here safely today where we can come together to celebrate the youth. Bless the proceedings that everything will go according to plan and help the youth that they'll be more empowered as we go stronger and better for the nation. Is my prayer in your name, amen. Providing this morning's welcome remarks, I now welcome to the podium Mr. Rouhan Loubon, Director of Youth. Thank you very much. First of all, I'd like to thank the various persons responsible for providing me the opportunity to serve as Director of Youth Development and Sports as it has only been 48 hours I've been in this position. I'd like to thank those persons in my office, my PS in particular and DPS and all of the workers, my secretary and everyone who has made my stay so far very, very interesting. So permit me to adopt the protocol that has been established. And just want to say that we are living in a time where there is rapid change in many sectors of our society. Day after day, we hear the cries of our people and the difficulties faced in attempting to improve their living standards. Crime, inflation and employment are just a few of the hindrances which have plagued our region and so every effort must be made to mitigate such occurrences for the survival of not only our generation but those to follow. And so it is very heartwarming to be welcomed by this important initiative which brought us all here. An initiative that is very timely and will definitely have a positive impact on a wide cross-section of our population. We at the Ministry of Youth Development and Sports are very pleased, very appreciative of this endorsement by our Cabinet of Ministers to facilitate the development and maintenance of the skilled St. Lucia mobile app and web browser. Such an app will open doors for us all, providing us with opportunities to market ourselves, generate income and subsequently to sustain our livelihood. As we all know, youth unemployment has been a major concern and talking point for many years. And so we foresee that this application will provide our youth with additional employment opportunities. More so, our unemployed graduates and non-graduates of secondary and tertiary institutions will now have an additional platform to showcase themselves and to increase the chances of being discovered by employers and potential employers. Employers too will benefit tremendously. As access to a database of skilled workers will be at the fingertips in order to facilitate swift recruitment for the businesses, hence enhancing the overall operations. It is with much optimism and confidence in this effective tool, the skilled St. Lucia app, that I implore you to fully utilize as it can only serve well for our human resource development capacity and by extension boost our nation's progress in this technological era. I thank you. Thank you, Mr. Loubon. Now providing our remarks is the Public Sector Modernization Representative, Mrs. Sherilyn Monroe Gustave. May we welcome her to the podium. Good morning, everybody. Protocol being established. The Division of Public Sector Modernization, DPSM, within the Department of Public Service, is honored to have partnered with the Ministry of Youth and Sports towards a successful development of the launch of the skilled 758 web browser and mobile app. In the current St. Lucia economy, economic recovery and resilience plan, moving from pandemic to recovery with collective action, our government aims to stimulate St. Lucia's economy to ensure our citizens are protected while supporting the survival and eventual further growth of our business sector. Considering this response, the St. Lucia Digital Development Strategy seeks to articulate our approach to developing a digital St. Lucia, which will support capacity building amongst our citizens and society, businesses and the public service, which in turn accelerate our move to a resilient and competitive digital economy, especially amongst our key economic sectors. By fully leveraging digital technologies to propel innovation, national development and global competitiveness, with a resilient economy and good governance as its foundation. At present, the government is aiming to transform public services delivery utilizing digital technologies and platforms to improve the user experience for citizens accessing public services and to improve the efficiency of internal government operations. Towards this end, the government is in the process of implementing DigiGov, a large-scale public service modernization initiative with phase implementation of 154 digitized public services across seven ministries and 13 agencies, using a phase approach with a priority timeline. The system will also include digital identification, authentication services, and a digital payment platform to facilitate full end-to-end digitization of these citizen-facing services. One of the objectives of our division is that of increased levels of connectivity and use of ICT with the specific goal of increasing the use and interoperability of ICTs in the public service to enable and deliver change. Another goal is that of inspiring, driving, and coordinating innovation in service delivery across the public service to make services more responsive as well as championing the application of innovative solutions for the use of ICTs. The major objective of this application being launched here today is centered around youth unemployment by creating opportunities in the digital space that will generate income and sustain livelihoods, aligning it to the objectives of a digital solution and by extension the objectives of our department. In parallel to the increasing youth unemployment around the world, mobile technologies have seen tremendous growth. The world of work is now changing. A major factor contributing to this is the proliferation of information and communication technologies with mobile technology playing a central role. More and more people are now using their mobiles to access the internet. Therefore, this initiative being launched here today is a step in the right direction and falls in line with the St. Lucia's digital development strategy. The public sector modernisation team would like to congratulate the Ministry of Youth and Sports on this excellent initiative and look forward to a continued relationship as we work together to digitise the public sector. Well done. Thank you. And offering his remarks, we welcome Honourable Kensin Kazmir, Minister of Youth Development and Sports. Thank you, Madam MC. Mistress of ceremonies. From the beautiful community of Labon-Grosele. I feel very, very, very honoured to welcome within our ministry Mr. Rohan Lubbo, as Director of Youth. I think we should give him a round of applause for his first public address. And of course, the responsibility will continue to fall on your shoulder as it pertains to the development of our nation's youth. We know that you did an excellent job at the Leon S. Comprehensive Secondary School in the 700 or so who walked through those corridors and now the expectation is for the almost 60% of our nation's youth to be given full, full representation. No pressure. Let me acknowledge the presence of our Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Youth and Sports. A lot of work has come in in the last 18 months before that, but since I've been there, I could speak to the amount of work that has been put in place by the Permanent Secretary as it pertains to youth development simply because we know we got a Minister of Youth Development and Sports who spent the bulk of his life in sports. And so I've had the blessings of having a Permanent Secretary who always pulled us in line to ensure that it's not just about sports but youth development is truly given the amount of attention it deserves in St. Lucia. And so the former Director of Youth, Mary Wilfred, ascended during that time to Deputy Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Youth Development and Sports. And while the PS is pulling me in line, Mary is pulling me even further. And so I think we have an excellent team, committed youth workers, committed youth representatives throughout St. Lucia. We've reestablished the National Youth Council after the tumultuous time. And I must say that I feel very confident that within the next four years and in many years to come, people will be looking at this period of youth development and it will continue to be the envy of the rest of the Caribbean. We are about to pass our youth policy and our action plan. And I believe we've all seen the demand for our young people to truly have a home and it's the intention of this Minister of Youth to finally ensure that before the end of this term, we have a national youth centre that is catered to our young people in this nation. And so today, we are here to launch what I believe is a very important application for young people. We all know that young people spend very little time away from their phones. And if you look around the room, if it is not on the lap, it's in the pocket. And if they are not looking at me, they are looking at it. And so when I came in as Minister, I thought it was very important during our time to meet the young people where they are, get an appreciation for their needs where they are and ensure that employers in their basic communities in all of St. Lucia, in the region and in the world could tap in and give them opportunities where they are. And so when we first spoke about developing an app, the question was exactly what the app would look like. And I'm happy that today we would get a demonstration of what skilled 758 truly seeks to do. It would become a database of the unemployed. We'd be able to really, when it's optimized, get a database of young people, some of which are under blocks, some of which are at home, watching TV, some of which are just looking for an opportunity. And the point is, finally, employers can actually tap into a one-stop shop, look at a series of profiles and decide who are the individuals they can interview for a position. It's an opportunity for exposure. It's an opportunity for persons who may, at a particular time, be in between jobs. May just have completed Sir Alpha Lois and may be looking for a short-term employment opportunity as well. We've spoken about Asia and how, in that particular continent, there's a huge gig economy. And with this app, individuals are just sitting at home who have the skill, perhaps on a Sunday afternoon, not doing anything. May just be a plumber, an electrician. May get a call from an individual who has an electrical problem within their community to provide that service. And, of course, solving that issue, that minor issue in that community, may afford the individual a small amount of money that could go a long way in improving their situation. And so, geolocation is going to be critical with this app. Who are the individuals in a community such as Babono, who are plumbers? How many plumbers do we have in a community such as Grozily? And where are they? How skilled are they beyond their hands? And that information, of course, would definitely ensure that we can program, we can program soft-skilled development of our people who have skills. And so, it is very opportune for us as a nation to do what we need to do to develop the holistic person in every way, shape, or form. It's an opportunity for a comprehensive apprenticeship programs within our communities as persons who may have a skill and may be considered a veteran, may be able to look in through that app and see who could be the next person, the next great electrician in that particular community, the next plumber. And, of course, with apprenticeship programs, we know you will learn the ins and out practically of your skill. The app will provide that opportunity as well. It will provide an avenue to strategize and synergize with the youth economy as persons with those skills could definitely apply for further assistance through the youth economy agency. And so, people, I'm very happy to deliver this to all of St. Lucia. I believe in the coming years, in countries such as Dominica where a number of our skilled workers apply to trade, they would make this app the first point of making employment decisions. It will be opportune for... I had a situation recently where a particular hotelier was looking for a particular skill. And I had to go through a database in Grozile and see, you know, who are these people that provide or have that particular skill set because there was an emergency. And I was like, if we had skill 758 app up and running at that time, I probably would not have been bothered with that while doing other things towards the development of St. Lucia. And so, this is my hope. The app is by no means perfect. I wouldn't imagine that it will be perfect from the beginning, as we've experienced in the Ministry of Infrastructure. But as time goes by, the expectation is that it gets better. It's tweaked and it gets better and better and better. The youth workers, the coordinators, the other officials, it must work hard to ensure that the app is populated and vetted effectively. And of course, the fact is in an additional... it is an additional investment into our nation's youth. An investment that as time goes by will only make their lives easier and only make their lives better. So I'm calling on all sectors or society to come on board, explore the app, make comments, see what could be done to better it. And the hope is that our young people that are currently going through secondary school who may be deciding on a future may not just decide they have to do maths and English and be purely theoretical if the true skill set is to be a plumber and an electrician. We have to be able to give these young people the opportunity to do exactly what they are born to do. And with this app, the next generation would be able to leave that dream. Thank you so much for your attention. Enjoy. We've come to the part where we get an overview of Skill 758 web browser and mobile app. So we're inviting to the podium for Curie Marks, Mr. Vernon Jean. Good morning, everyone. Protocol being established. Let me adopt that. It was a pleasure for me to have worked on this app. It is something that me and my team have been working on for quite some time. And when the minister mentioned that he was looking for a skill database, it reinvigorated us to really pursue this particular app. And we do hope that it can really bridge the gap for a lot of persons, a lot of persons who are skilled and who want to tap into a gig economy and to put themselves out there to bolster themselves and the economy of St. Lucia. We're just going to go through a brief overview of what the app is. And we have a short video here. So, not to show how much you could have gathered from this, but, yeah, so essentially it makes it easy for persons to search for jobs that are nearby and also for persons who are seeking skilled workers nearby. And in there, we have geo-locating, so persons can easily search if you're in grocery, search for grocery. If you're in canaries, you can search for persons in canaries. And you can search for the types of skills that you want. So, for example, you wake up one morning and you notice that your fridge isn't working. Do you know anybody in your area who can fix fridges? You could easily go onto the app and search for fridge repair and you could find someone with that particular set of skills. Also, if you would like to post a job, you could, as an employer, you could post a job on there, stating that you're looking for a particular skill and you could have several different persons coming to you, almost bidding to do that particular job for you. So it creates a different dynamic as far as how we approach jobs here in Senusia. Also integrated in there, we have a chat feature whereby persons can directly and instantaneously interact with persons that they're working with. And they could even create it into group chats and so on, making it easy to communicate and get a clear picture of what you want done. Can we load up the other one which is the actual app? We looked at the website and we're going to look at the app. There isn't much content on there as yet so we've been seeing lots of things blank but this is what the app would look like. To the top, you have a search feature and you have it based in different categories as well. You could also see persons featured services so if someone is offering a service like website design, visual design and so forth and you could also search by country as well. If you go to a particular service that someone is offering you can see who is offering that particular service. You can see what their rate is and to the bottom, I guess I screwed up too fast but to the bottom you'd be able to send them a request as far as what you would like done. In there, you could view the person's profile and see exactly what their skills are, how many jobs that they have currently undertaken, how many have been undertaken as well. That's just back to the homepage of the app. Quite simple. You can search and as you can search for freelancer jobs, you can search for employers, and narrow your search down to what you would want. So it makes the database quite simple for persons to use, putting things at their fingertips. Okay, and thank you very much. Thank you, of course, Mr. Zia for this demonstration of the app. Now we're inviting to do our vote of thanks this morning, a representative from the National Youth Council. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. We have come to the end of a formal launch of the 758th Skilled App Web Browser and Mobile App. We want to take this opportunity to express our gratitude for every individual and organization, those who have journeyed from the initial discussions of the app. Very importantly, those who participated in the stakeholder consultations process, the National Skills Development Center, TVET unit of the Ministry of Education, the Labor Department, National Youth Council and District Youth and Sports Councils, Chamber of Commerce, all the youth workers and app developers. To the mysteries of ceremony, we will, Ms. Krista Setaj, we are thankful for your grace and poise in keeping the program together. Thanks to Ms. Kezia, Vice-Isidore, for your invocation of God's guidance and blessings. We want to say special thank you to those who deliver remarks. Mr. Ron Lubbo, for his youth, sorry, Mr. Ron Lubbo, director of youth for his warm welcome to all of us. Ms. Shalyan Monrose Gustav for kind remarks. Honorable Kenton Kazemi, the Minister of Youth Development and Sports, for his vision and taking action in addressing youth unemployment through this app. The Government Information Communications Unit at the Ministry and other media. We would also like to express thanks to the Attorney General Office for the Legal Assistance and the Division of the Public Sector Modernization for Technical Assistance. We are privileged this morning to have representatives from both private and public sector. This signals strategic partnerships and support for this initiative. We look forward to your continued collaboration with this initiative. Thank you everyone. And as we close, we want to thank everyone in this room who works really hard to make sure that this project came to fruition. Thank you of course for attending and of course thank you for your continued support. We do regretten from that Honorable Phillip J.P.A. Prime Minister of St. Lucia is unable to attend this morning because he is in attendance at the Awards of Excellence. So thank you once again everybody for joining us today for the launch of Skilled758 Web Browser and Mobile App. Do have a lovely day.