A website containing over 200 digitalised speeches written and delivered by Dr. Eric Williams, the first Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, has been launched.
Launched by the Ministry of Planning and Development on Thursday, the objective of the website is to preserve the intellectual legacy of Dr. Eric Williams through digitalisation.
Planning and Development Minister Pennelope Beckles said these masterful pieces have been properly filed and secured with the Library Services Unit of the Ministry.
The 238 pieces, which can now be accessed online by the public, spans the period 1957 to 1981. She said they had incorporated Artificial Intelligence (AI), along with a battery of other digital technologies, to preserve Williams’ legacy and also reproduce him reading his written works aloud.
Beckles said, “Through this process, we are preserving history and certainly adding to the improvement of the human conditions, making Dr Williams’ work easily accessible in digital format for purposes of education, information, research and other endeavours.”
The minister assured the online collection was protected by various forms of cyber-security measures, including firewalls and anti-malware.
Delivering the feature address on behalf of Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley, Education Minister Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly said the Government was “leading the preservation of unquestionable artefacts of historical heritage.”
Indicating this was the future, Gadsby-Dolly said she was excited to see the project unfold further. Warning that failure to preserve such historical treasures could result in someone else doing so, and/or it crumbling to become fragments in the wind, Gadsby-Dolly quoted from Rowley’s prepared text, which said, “I will do what it takes to guarantee that we can tell our children, and they can tell their children, that we did it.
“We kept the things that emboldened our sense of pride and patriotism, those symbols of our journey as a nation.”
To Commemorate this occasion Beckles was joined by the daughter of Dr. Eric Williams Mrs. Erica Williams-Connell, Former Minister of Planning Camille Robinson-Regis, cabinet Colleagues, Mayors, and the team from the Ministry of Planning and Development. Key partners in this project are NALIS and the Central Bank of T&T.
Visit www.ericwilliams.gov.tt to access the website.