TTIGF 2025 — Ninth Annual Trinidad and Tobago Internet Governance Forum — In-Depth Report: Minutes Digest & 3-Line Summary

The 3-Line Summary

On 30–31 January 2025 the ninth TTIGF ran as a hybrid event under the theme 'Building Our Multistakeholder Digital Future', with new Internet Society CEO Sally Wentworth keynoting.
AI in education, cybersecurity, financial inclusion, AI for disaster resilience and a youth forum on cyberbullying were joined by a CTU-led session gathering Caribbean ccTLD managers.
The UN's Global Digital Compact and WSIS+20 were debated first-hand by ISOC's chief at a small state's national IGF — a live example of national forums plugging into global governance reform.

Welcome — this is the Japan IGF Support Organization. This in-depth report on TTIGF 2025 — Ninth Annual Trinidad and Tobago Internet Governance Forum draws on official outputs, session records and on-site reporting. In a hurry? The three lines above and the diagrams carry the gist.

Conference at a Glance (from official records)

Item	Detail
Official name	TTIGF 2025 — Ninth Annual Trinidad and Tobago Internet Governance Forum
Dates	Thursday 30 – Friday 31 January 2025
Venue	Hybrid event (based in Port of Spain) (The official report describes it only as a two-day hybrid event without naming the physical venue; 'Port of Spain' follows the organisers' base and the GRULAC record)
Theme	Regional governance themes
Host	Hosted by TTMAG (chair Jacqueline Morris)
Outcome	Theme 'Building Our Multistakeholder Digital Future', inspired by the 2024 UN IGF theme; the ninth annual edition, with a 30-page meeting report published in February 2026

(See the source list at the end of this article.)

Discussion Digest — from the Session Records

Key exchanges extracted from session records and transcripts.

1. Straight Talk on the GDC and WSIS+20 — Keynote by ISOC's New CEO

Sessions: Keynote addresses (30 Jan; Sally Wentworth, CEO of ISOC and the ISOC Foundation, alongside Permanent Secretary Cory Belfon and others)

Wentworth noted the Global Digital Compact recognises the IGF as the primary multistakeholder platform, yet said ISOC 'cannot fully endorse' the GDC because it was not developed in a truly multistakeholder manner — while pledging to work toward its objectives [3][1]
With 2025 the WSIS+20 review year, she stressed that local action shapes the internet's future, hence ISOC's support for national and regional IGFs [3][1]
LACNIC's AI legal-policy consultant Javed Sajad noted 2.6 billion people remain offline, mostly in developing countries, and proposed AI regulatory sandboxes for the Caribbean [3][1]

2. AI in Education — with Arizona State's CIO on Learning Beyond the Classroom

Sessions: Panel 'AI in Education: Navigating the Future' (30 Jan, 9:30–11:00; moderator Jacqueline Morris)

ASU CIO Lev Gonick showed learning escaping the classroom — recorded, transcribed, AI-summarised lectures and the avatar-based 'Dreamscape Learn' with a personal AI tutor [3][2]
NIHERST chairman Andrew Hunte outlined UWI's approach: student-, teacher- and system-facing AI, plus citation rules that keep AI use from becoming plagiarism [3][2]
Q&A pressed on data privacy and on being innovators, not just consumers, of AI [3][2]

3. Financial Inclusion by the Numbers — Connected 80%, Fluent 40%

Sessions: Panel 'Digital Transformation and Financial Inclusion' (31 Jan, 13:10–14:40; moderator Ajmal Nazir, TTMAG director)

TTIFC CEO John Outridge quantified the gap: ~80% have internet access, yet a 2023 study found ~60% don't know how to use digital financial apps, and 60% of transactions remain cash [3]
Paywise's founder and Pinaka's Shiva Bissessar discussed India's UPI team visiting in December 2024 and simplified-KYC wallets for the unbanked [3]
Permanent Secretary Belfon cited 292 government e-services (145 transactional) and pledged to feed the forum's ideas into the 2024–2027 national DX strategy [3]

4. Rallying Caribbean ccTLDs — the CTU Session, Disaster-Resilience AI and the Youth Forum

Sessions: CTU session 'Accelerating the involvement of Caribbean ccTLDs within the global ccTLD community' (31 Jan, 15:30–16:45) and other sessions

Under CTU secretary-general Rodney Taylor, ccNSO chair Alejandra Reynoso and registry managers from Anguilla, Curaçao, Haiti and Canada's CIRA filled three back-to-back panels; the Caribbean's 33 ccTLDs shared small-registry struggles of staffing and revenue [3][2]
UWI's Letetia Addison mapped AI for disaster resilience — digital-twin simulations and better emergency coordination — in a hurricane-belt context [3][2]
The youth forum on 'Bullying in the Cyber Age', run with an AI avatar named Diana, tackled bullying that now follows victims home, 24/7 [3][2]

Three-Minute Short Talk — Your Questions Answered

Q. Is nine straight years a big deal?

A. Yes — every January since 2017 without a gap, the Caribbean's steadiest national IGF, now drawing ISOC's new CEO as keynote.

Q. The most candid moment?

A. ISOC CEO Sally Wentworth saying ISOC 'cannot fully endorse' the UN's Global Digital Compact because of how it was made — international-document dissent voiced plainly at a national IGF.

Q. Why should I care?

A. The 'connected but not fluent' financial-inclusion gap, disaster-resilience AI and the WSIS+20 debate are live issues in most countries — here compressed into a two-day national forum.

What Is Trinidad IGF? (for first-time readers)

Trinidad IGF is a National or Regional IGF Initiative (NRI), aligning local internet governance discussion with global IGF principles.

Why It Matters to You

What was discussed here becomes the baseline for national digital policy, platform rules and AI regulation worldwide within a few years. The principles confirmed at the 2025 meeting are the foundation of the "next rules" for the phones, social platforms and AI services you use every day.