DevCa (Developing the Caribbean Open Data Conference/Hackathon) continues to be a relevant platform for enabling dialogue and collaboration around the development and spread of a culture of data throughout the Caribbean and as a catalyst for innovation and experimentation. The DevCA2019 theme ‘Smart Communities, Smart(er) People’ reinterprets the global focus on “Smart Cities” within the Caribbean reality where the unit of analysis and experience for many Caribbean peoples is the Community, rather than big urban cities.

The Developing the Caribbean Open Data Conference and Code Sprint (DevCa) is a
multi-country event, comprising a two day conference and 24 hour developer competition,
focused on open innovation, open data and civic tech trends. The third staging of the event took
place from April 11-12, 2013. This year’s regional participation included 5 locations across:
● Jamaica
● Trinidad & Tobago
● Dominican Republic
● Guyana
● Cuba.

Regional Executive Summary and Individual country reports for the The Caribbean Open Data Conference and Code Sprint, themed “Developing the Caribbean” that was staged over the 2-day period, 26 – 27 January 2012 at locations in Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago and the Dominican Republic, with virtual participating nodes in Barbados and Cuba. The report provides a concise summary of Event highlights and outcomes including links to multi-media content and Applications developed from the codesprint.

This scoping study was conducted within an overarching research project “Harnessing Open Data to Achieve Development Results in Latin America and the Caribbean”, funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and executed by the Caribbean Open Institute (COI) in collaboration with partners Iniciativa Latinoamericana por los Datos Abiertos (ILDA), Fundacion Avina, Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the Organization of American States (OAS). The larger project explores how open data policies and strategies can contribute to the development agenda in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) through the following general objectives:
1. To improve understanding of the demand for, and use of, Open Data for development in the Caribbean
2. To support the collaborative development of products and services between government, civil society, academic institutions and entrepreneurs
3. To promote the development and adoption of emerging open standards that enable open data initiatives to scale up
4. To explore mechanisms for open data to address the needs of marginalized groups, focusing particularly on, but not limited to, youth, women and urban poor.
This particular study is one of five regional sector-specific scoping studies undertaken in support of Objective 1. It examines the nature, use and potential impacts of open data in fisheries and marine protected areas (MPAs) in a sample of Caribbean countries: Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Bahamas, Jamaica and Dominican Republic.