TTIGF 2017 — First Trinidad and Tobago Internet Governance Forum — In-Depth Report: Minutes Digest & 3-Line Summary

The 3-Line Summary

On the morning of 26 January 2017, the first Trinidad and Tobago IGF met at the Courtyard Marriott in Port of Spain — the first national IGF anywhere in the English-speaking Caribbean.
Under the theme 'The Role of the Internet and the Digital Economy in the Sustainable Development of Trinidad and Tobago', a panel of UWI, the TTIX exchange, regulator TATT and TTMAG ranged from ICT's economic integration to net neutrality, closing with an open forum.
Video greetings from the UN IGF Secretariat, the MAG chair and IGFSA marked its entry into the recognised NRI network — a small-state launch case led by the .tt community's TTMAG.

Welcome — this is the Japan IGF Support Organization. This in-depth report on TTIGF 2017 — First 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 2017 — First Trinidad and Tobago Internet Governance Forum
Dates	26 January 2017 (9 am – 1 pm)
Venue	Courtyard Marriott, Port of Spain
Theme	Regional governance themes
Host	Hosted by the Trinidad and Tobago Multistakeholder Advisory Group (TTMAG), with IEEE TT, ICANN, IGFSA, ISOC-TT, TTCSI, TTCS, TTIX and TTNIC as strategic partners
Outcome	The first national IGF ever held in the English-speaking Caribbean; a published meeting report, a themed panel and an open forum — launching an annual series held each January

(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. First in the English-Speaking Caribbean — a National IGF That Started with Half a Day

Sessions: Opening (chair Tracy Hackshaw) and video greetings (Chengetai Masango, UN IGF Secretariat; Lynn St. Amour, MAG chair; Markus Kummer, IGFSA; Marilyn Cade, IGF-USA)

The official report bills it as 'the first national IGF event ever held in the English-speaking Caribbean', with a multistakeholder audience from academia, business, civil society and the public sector [2][1]
Four global governance figures — including the UN IGF Secretariat's Masango and MAG chair St. Amour — sent video greetings, and the NRI-to-global-IGF relationship was explained upfront [2][1]
A right-sized start — 9 am to 1 pm in a hotel meeting room — grew into an annual January series [2][1]

2. The Digital Economy and Sustainable Development — 'ICT Co-Evolves with the Economy'

Sessions: The panel (moderator Mark Lyndersay; Patrick Hosein, TTMAG; Kim Mallalieu, UWI; Kurleigh Prescod, TTIX; Kirk Sookram, TATT)

"'Government is an easy blame' in such matters — more helpful is to identify precisely where bottlenecks exist and treat them directly (quoted in part from the official report)"
— Dr. Kim Mallalieu (Senior Lecturer, University of the West Indies) [2]

Mallalieu framed ICT as co-evolving with the wider economy, urging development tied to local niches like entertainment rather than copying advanced-country templates [2]
TTIX's Prescod called for state-built safety nets that make risk-taking survivable; TTMAG's Hosein pressed for more university R&D investment [2]
The panel endorsed top-down infrastructure enabling bottom-up ingenuity, with each stakeholder group playing to its capabilities [2]

3. Net Neutrality — the CANTO Code and 'No Detection, No Enforcement'

Sessions: The net-neutrality section of the panel

Working from the CANTO Code of Practice on Safeguarding the Open Internet (signed by regional operators in 2016), the panel probed what counts as 'legal services' and how neutrality applies to triple-play operators [2]
TATT's Sookram described the regulator's ongoing research amid OTT growth and policy shifts at the US FCC [2]
Hosein flagged the enforcement problem — throttling is easy to hide, so without detection capability enforcement is near-impossible — citing local research on detection [2]

4. The Open Forum — Agenda-Setting from the Room and the Stream

Sessions: The open forum following the panel

Participants in the room and online raised policy issues across the internet's sustainability, robustness, security, stability, access and development [1][2]
Full livestreaming plus published video, photos and a report PDF set the series' documentation standard from day one [1][2]
The format — themed panel, open forum, everything published — became the TTIGF template [1][2]

Three-Minute Short Talk — Your Questions Answered

Q. Could half a day matter?

A. Very much: the first national IGF in the English-speaking Caribbean, greeted on video by the UN IGF Secretariat and the MAG chair, and the origin of an annual January series with a panel-plus-open-forum, publish-everything template.

Q. How substantive was it?

A. Quite: sustainable digital-economy development as the theme, and a net-neutrality debate that reached the technical crux — without detection of violations, enforcement is nearly impossible.

Q. Why should I care?

A. A ccTLD community body (TTMAG) hosting the national dialogue is a replicable model, and 'start small, set the template, repeat annually' works at any scale.

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 2017 meeting are the foundation of the "next rules" for the phones, social platforms and AI services you use every day.