By Robert Andre Emmanuel
Principal of the University of the West Indies Five Islands campus Professor Justin Robinson has hailed the successful organisation of the institution’s inaugural AI research conference.
Held under the theme “Reimagining the digital transformation of the Caribbean in an age of generation AI and the fifth industrial revolution”, the conference brought together business leaders, researchers, and policymakers to delve into how AI can be used in the Caribbean region to benefit areas such as tourism, health, education, the creative industries, and climate action and the environment.
Professor Robinson told Observer that with hundreds of registrants at the conference, he was elated at the level of commendations the university had received for putting together this event.







“There’s been a tremendous attendance of persons at the conference, and more important has been the content and impact of the conference… so, one of the most important aspects of these conferences is the networking, persons with different ideas and different contacts meeting for the first time and making connections,” Professor Robinson noted.
The UWI Principal said that the Caribbean needs to be prepared to take advantage of the AI revolution which will become increasingly integral to everyday life.
“For example, one of the exciting papers presented here was some UWI professors working on online tutors that are using Caribbean accents so it’s things like, how do we use AI to help us manage our sargassum seaweed problems, using AI in healthcare and so it really was a very exciting conference, both in terms of the number of persons who have chosen to come to Antigua and join us for this conference, as well as the richness of the content and the discussion,” Professor Robinson explained.
Government officials and ministers, including the Prime Minister, participated in various panels covering a wide range of topics, including using AI to address non-communicable diseases, fight crime, enhance cybersecurity, and improve food security.
In one panel, Minister of Education Daryll Matthew spoke about how important it is for regional governments to prepare people, especially students and educators, for the technological revolution.
During the panel discussion “AI for good: reimagining education and socio-economic development”, the minister said that he has been speaking with UWI staff on how to establish a team to look at what educational reform with generative AI would look like.
CEO of the regional examination body, CXC, Dr Wayne Wesley, and Chief Research and Analysis Officer for UNESCO International Institute for Higher Education, Victoria Galan-Muros, spoke about how public-private partnerships and policy frameworks could be created to support a technology-adaptive educational system, preparing the workforce for a digital global economy.
Galan-Muros spoke about the potential for AI in higher education, especially in reaching persons with disabilities and cultural minorities, opening new personalised education pathways.
Following the positive feedback garnered from the conference, Professor Robinson said the plan is to make it an annual event.
“There’s been a lot of requests for us to make this an annual conference, so I think I can say we will have another AI conference like this next year.
“What might be different is that it would be somewhat more targeted because AI is a very broad area; what we saw coming out of this conference and what is seemingly most relevant and pressing to our region is AI in education, healthcare, in terms of managing our environment and marine resources, and AI in disaster management,” he said.
Meanwhile, Director of Academic Affairs and co-chair for the conference, Dr Curtis Charles, was on cloud nine when speaking about the success of the conference.


















“When we started thinking about this, we started with a very simple idea: based on my experience working in tech in the US, I knew that there are Caribbean leaders everywhere in tech and what I wanted to do was to say, could we bring those tech leaders together and discuss for three days how we reimagine the digital transformation of the Caribbean.
“So, we started with one person, Dr Nicholas Fuller, and then he introduced me to Dr Danielle Belgrave, [who then introduced me to] Dr Naila Murray, who is the Director of Research at Meta FAIR in London.
“We started with zero persons, zero money, but the aspiration and the vision was that the Caribbean needs to lead in artificial intelligence; we can’t let this fifth industrial revolution pass us by,” Dr Charles explained.
He said that the participants were extremely active throughout the conference, even well into the night.
“Last evening [Tuesday] we did something that I’ve never seen in a conference – we stopped the conference at about 3:00 and then we had a networking session with some steelpan in the background and then we had what we called ‘Tasting of the Caribbean’ so we walked to the Green Apple restaurant, and then after that we stopped at 5:00.
“Then we had three master classes—Dr Danielle Belgrave who is the Vice President of AI and Machine Learning at Glaxo Smith Kline, then we had a master class where representatives from UNESCO, who have developed a road map for AI for the Caribbean, and then we had a representative from the Tony Blair Institute, and then we stayed here until 10, people were mingling and our students had an opportunity to engage with some of these scholars,” Dr Charles said.
