Caribbean Conference on Information Systems, 2006

I am attending the first Caribbean Conference on Information Systems (CCIS) at University of West Indies, Kingston, Jamaica. The conference is being hosted by the Mona campus of the University. As a starter conference, the event serves a unique purpose: to jump-start research in Information Systems in the English-speaking Caribbean, which seems to be lacking due to stronger emphasis on areas of Computer Science and Computer Engineering. The "third branch" of computing, as put forth by the program chair (Dr. Evan Duggan) seems to have been largely ignored thus far.

The event is different from many other events in that the meeting has presentations being held in one session. That puts all attendees in one location and makes the discussions quite focused. The doctoral students are very well prepared to study different topics in the Jamaican context. The first day had presentations on the Knowledge Management and Sourcing themes. The second day had topics on Information Security and Open Source Software paradigms. The third day wrapped up with communication topics such as Nomadic Computing, Wireless and Broadband over power lines. Each day ended with an industry panel discussion, where academicians got to face-off with practitioners.

Overall the event was impressive and well organized. It was symbiotic for the students who got to hear from international scholars and for the visiting scholars to see young minds at work. To top it off, there was Jerk Pork and Red Stripe at the end of the day to put it all in perspective.