The Mona School of Business at UWI hosts the first Slashroots (./roots 2011) Developers' Conference designed to foster and encourage the development of local technological innovations and provide an environment to support dialogue among stakeholders of innovations particularly members of the technology community, public and private sector interests and policy makers. The Conference takes place on February 24-25, 2011 at the Multifunctional Room at the Faculty of Law, UWI, Mona.

A major objective of the conference is the promotion of OpenData and it will highlight the benefits associated with increased access to such information. The event will give emphasis to projects that are innovative in their approach and projects that increase access to technology for the local population.

The highlight of the Conference is a 24-hour national software developer competition dubbed, “OpenData Camp” which takes place on February 24. The Camp will feature two ongoing technology development projects at the UWI namely: an Agriculture OpenData initiative and the Jamaica One Laptop per Child project. The OpenData Camp is designed to raise awareness about the agriculture open data initiative and showcase the programming skills and innovation resident in the local software developer community. The event will see teams comprising three developers using this 24 hour window to build value-added applications and visualizations that demonstrate the possibilities that arise from increased data access.

The conference is being timed to coincide with a week of activities that promote the Caribbean Open Forum and a workshop on New Mechanisms for Linking Research and Policy. These events are being organized by Communica, Panos Caribbean and the Telecommunications Policy and Management Programme of the Mona School of Business, UWI with the support of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC). These events are expected to bring a higher level of innovation through improvements in the application of technology, participation in global dialogue, and a localization of developments to suit the Jamaican context. Innovation that is responsive to global technology trends and also to the needs of the local Jamaican community is the ultimate goal.