TTIGF 2018 — Second Trinidad and Tobago Internet Governance Forum — In-Depth Report: Minutes Digest & 3-Line Summary

The 3-Line Summary

On 26 January 2018 the second TTIGF met at the Trinidad and Tobago Chamber of Industry and Commerce under the theme 'Shape Your Digital Future', with online participation available.
Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation secretary-general Shola Taylor delivered the keynote; three panels covered digital financial services, gender activism online, and blockchain, followed by the customary open forum.
Putting fintech and blockchain on the agenda in early 2018 was an early echo of the Caribbean's financial-inclusion debate — and the Chamber venue signalled a year-two strategy of pulling business in.

Welcome — this is the Japan IGF Support Organization. This in-depth report on TTIGF 2018 — Second 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 2018 — Second Trinidad and Tobago Internet Governance Forum
Dates	Friday 26 January 2018
Venue	Trinidad and Tobago Chamber of Industry and Commerce (Westmoorings, near Port of Spain), with online participation available (The Chamber sits in Westmoorings, adjacent to Port of Spain; the catalogue's 'Port of Spain' is a metropolitan-area label)
Theme	Regional governance themes
Host	Hosted by the Trinidad and Tobago Multistakeholder Advisory Group (TTMAG)
Outcome	Under the theme 'Shape Your Digital Future': a keynote, three panels and an open forum, with video, photos and an official report published

(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. Digital Finance and Blockchain — Financial Inclusion, Asked Inside the Chamber

Sessions: Panels on digital financial services and blockchain

Two of the three panels went to financial technology — digital financial services and blockchain — probing digital payments and distributed ledgers in a cash-heavy Caribbean economy [1]
Meeting at the Chamber of Industry and Commerce institutionalised business-sector participation compared with the hotel debut [1]
The theme became a through-line of the series, running to the 2025 'digital transformation and financial inclusion' panel [1]

2. Gender Activism Online — an Early Move in January 2018

Sessions: Panel 'Gender Activism Online'

In January 2018 — right after #MeToo went global — the forum gave online gender activism its own panel [1]
The frame covered both digital organising and its risks, pioneering for a Caribbean national IGF [1]
Keynoting, CTO secretary-general Shola Taylor set small-state digital strategy in the Commonwealth ICT policy context [1]

3. Getting the Edition Number Right — Second, Not First

Sessions: The edition in series context

TTIGF's first edition was 26 January 2017 (Marriott, Port of Spain), documented in the official report as the English-speaking Caribbean's first national IGF; 2018 was the second [2][1][3]
Repeating the January date and the panel-plus-open-forum, publish-everything format for a second straight year established the series' reliability [2][1][3]
The video-photos-report documentation trio continued from year one [2][1][3]

Three-Minute Short Talk — Your Questions Answered

Q. What did the theme mean?

A. 'Shape Your Digital Future' — design the future rather than receive it. Digital financial services and blockchain were debated before they arrived at scale.

Q. The most interesting session?

A. A standalone panel on gender activism online, weeks after #MeToo went global — covering both digital organising and its harassment risks.

Q. Why should I care?

A. Cashless payments and financial inclusion hit many countries' agendas at the same moment, and hosting at a chamber of commerce is a practical trick for pulling business into an IGF.

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 2018 meeting are the foundation of the "next rules" for the phones, social platforms and AI services you use every day.