UCCI conference to stir up community wide debate

| 16/03/2011

(CNS): The country’s university will be opening the doors to the wider public on Thursday evening when it hosts its second leadership conference on the campus in George Town. With some 60 different sessions covering a plethora of subject areas by speakers from home and abroad, the conference promises guests an intellectually stimulating experience. This year’s key note speaker on the opening night is Sir Shridath Ramphal, former Secretary General of the Commonwealth Secretariat. The response and Q&A will be given by Cayman’s Chief magistrate Margaret Ramsay-Hale.

On Friday Ramsay-Hale will also headline the second plenary session with a presentation on ‘Feminism’ before the panel session on ‘Women, Leadership and Empowerment’.

There will be around 60 presentations covering a wide array of subjects, from e-governance, finance, gender issues, and roles of social institutions in empowering people, food security, media, and politics, among others, during the two day event.

Thorny subjects such as the country’s Public Management and Finance Law, media and Freedom of Information, politics and “politricks” will be tackled, as well as issues such as opportunities for young people in Cayman, and food security and social tolerance.

The conference opens with a cocktail reception at the Sir Vassel Hall on campus at 5pm before the evening’s presentations, which start at 6pm with a message from the college president Roy Bodden, who has recently been given the Distinguished Alumni Award 2011 from Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada. The educator, author and former politician received the award from his former school on the basis of his achievement and leadership in his field.

For more details and conference schedule click here

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  1. Anonymous says:
    17/03/2011 at 5:47 pm

    Congratulations Mr. Bodden and the supporting educational professionals at UCCI for organizing this governance educational conference.

    In the Cayman Islands, like many other Overseas Territories, we are seriously deficit in governance knowledge. It has served past government administrations well to keep the governed ignorant of our governance systems, thereby making us dependant on their political verbiage, twisting facts to promote their personal political objectives, too often at our expense.
     
    At the same time recognition must be given to the Constitutional Commission as they too embark on a governance educational campaign in the next few months.
     
    UCCI is fulfilling an extremely important function in this conference and the governance courses that are now being offered, now is the time for the Ministry of Education to follow the example set by UCCI. 
     
    The Cayman Islands would be better served if this same commitment to governance education was required throughout our education system. 
     
    An informed electorate would be enabled to make informed choices at the ballot box based on substantial critical analysis skills to examine the polices the candidates support and stop selling their high value vote for cheap promises to placate and fool us.
     
    Best wishes UCCI for a successful conference.
     
    William H. Adam
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