Angel Gonzalez. Wired News.
2:00 a.m. June 6, 2001 PDT
With the help of Canadian investors, the last bastion of communism intends
to join the only revolution it missed -– the technological one.
"Cuba can become the India of the Caribbean," said Stephane
d'Amours, co-founder of Silicon Island, the Montreal-based company determined to
bring offshore software development to Cuba.
D'Amours, who has worked in Haiti and other underdeveloped countries, sees
great potential in Cuba's untapped human resources. "They have literacy and
health standards on par with the developed world," he said. "It's
destined to be a technological hub on Latin America's doorstep."
D'Amours' company has established a partnership with CenterSoft, a Cuban
state-run enterprise, to lure Canadian developers toward sunnier shores.
Cuba existed in relative isolation until the late 1980s, when the collapse
of the Soviet bloc forced it to open its doors to tourism and foreign investment
from Europe and Latin America. With the opening came Western computer
technology, and local programmers quickly adopted languages such as Visual Basic
and C++.
Last year, the government formally recognized the importance of information
technology by creating the Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC). "Our
mission is to bring IT to every sector of Cuban society," said Vice
Minister Melchor Gil. "We are going to socialize computing."
Gil said the ministry's mission is to wire hospitals, universities and
schools. But information technology is not only about bringing computers to the
masses. It's also about bringing dollars to an economy dependent on tourism and
remittances from Cubans abroad.
"It is only through export that our software industry can make a leap
forward," said Roberto del Puerto, project chief at MIC. "We have
already worked with Spanish banks and insurance companies to solve the Y2K
problem and the euro conversion."
Canadian companies seem harder to convince. So far none have decided to
invest, although some are curious.
"We know there's good expertise there, many Java programmers,"
said Jacques Charron, CEO of Kheops-Tech, a geo-matic applications developer.
Charron also thinks that Cuba could be a good service platform for Latin
America, due to cultural and linguistic similarities. "If we sell a product
in Venezuela, we might service it from Cuba," he said.
Cuba's technology pitch is not unreasonable. The country has a highly
educated population, comprising 12 percent of Latin America's engineers. In
addition, the government is expanding IT education programs across the country.
Gil says more than 30,000 computer professionals have emerged from Cuba's 47
universities and technological institutes, and there is a relatively
well-developed -- for Latin American standards -- electronics sector inherited
from the Cold War.
The Cubans' extreme resourcefulness, visible in their ability to keep the
country's high percentage of classic 1950s cars running, is also evident in
their programmers. They acquire the latest American programming tools, subject
to embargo, from third countries -– and since they don't benefit from
technical support, they reverse-engineer as much as they can.
But Cuba is a long way from becoming an information society, or even a
low-wage skilled labor supplier. "What you have in Cuba is a highly
educated community, but they're not very computer friendly," said Joe
Garcia, president of the anti-Castro Cuban American National Foundation. "What
in paper seems like a good investment ends up being not profitable."
The first reason is that the telecommunications infrastructure is deficient.
There are only six telephone lines per 100 people, and fiber optic has not made
its way over yet. "All international communications are via satellite,
which affects bandwidth, and internal lines are in bad condition," Gil
said.
Labor costs are also relatively high. Even though top Cuban engineers
receive from the government a monthly salary of 500 pesos ($25), foreign
companies would have to pay the Cuban state $10 to $30 per employee/hour, which
is not much cheaper than pay rates in Canada or the United States.
Third, computer savvy is not exactly widespread, and the elements that are
foundations of hacker culture -- home-IP accounts, computers and free access to
information -- are scarce. Specialists freely access the Net from their place of
work, but otherwise, most access to computers is through collective
organizations like computer clubs operated by the Communist Youths. "It is
improbable that in a poor country like Cuba everybody will have a computer at
home," Gil said.
Cuba will have a hard time competing for IT eminence with a country like
Costa Rica, which has an excellent telecommunications infrastructure, comparable
literacy and health standards, and is on the good side of the United States.
But Cuba, unlike Costa Rica, is only 90 miles away from south Florida, and
this proximity could one day reverse the economic fortunes of the island -- as
soon as the U.S. is convinced that democracy is respected on the other side of
the Florida Strait.
Some hope that technology will help bring that change. "When I started
Silicon Island I knew I'd be cooperating with the Cuban government,"
d'Amours said. "But at the end of the line, more people will communicate.
The free flow of ideas will happen."
See also:
Faint Voices
Rise From Cuba
Cuba Hears
Call for Wireless
Cuba Not So
Libre With the Net
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