JPS’s mentorship workshop aims to ‘energise’ and support youth

JPS Senior Vice-President of Shared Services, Ricardo Case, is assured the island’s next generation of engineers will shine bright.

“I have a lot of confidence in the youth. It’s very important to inject energy in them and belief, but more importantly to support them,” remarked Case, who serves on the academic advisory board at the University of Technology (UTech).

With this higher-learning appointment, the power company executive has crafted “futuristic type” assignment projects for students in the engineering faculty which he likened to “almost being a long interview process”.

Case shared that within the last six years, “[a number of] students who have done those projects end up working at JPS. They come in through the internship programme or otherwise, and they are doing exceptionally well”.

The senior vice-president’s disclosure came in an interview following his presentation at a recent mentorship programme workshop hosted by the JPS Foundation at the utility’s New Kingston corporate offices.

In attendance were tertiary-level students from UTech, The University of the West Indies, The Mico University College and Church Teachers’ College. They were in rapt attention to Case’s presentation on ‘Disruptive Innovation’ that delved into creatively tackling new ways for business to access growth possibilities.

“The essence of it is that we have to intentionally disrupt, even if something is working,” Case explained to his youthful audience about the discussion topic. “You have to intentionally disrupt it so that you can create new jobs, new values, new systems, new methodologies; and that is really how a business grows.”

He cited the example of technology company Apple, which intentionally removed the headphone jack output on its phone devices in 2016. “Everyone thought they would have failed with the headphone jack removal, but they created the evolution of the wireless earphones where a lot of people said it would not have worked,” Case noted. “They created a new business line, to the point where the headphones were making more money than the phones – that’s disruptive innovation. Nothing was wrong with the phone and the headphone jack; they had a whole industry that was mature and built on that, but it was intentionally disrupted and increased revenue, and also created new jobs and new products.”

The power company executive championed the innovative mindset as a way forward for today’s youth.

“It is important because they are the ones who a lot of these things are catered to, and they have different values themselves than the status quo,” Case rationalised. “They are in a generation where they are born with tablets in their hands. That itself is creating pressures and value on the type of service they want, so they are coming into an organisation with legacy systems, where a lot of things are going to be out of match with their expectations and experience. So, they are the ones you have to count on to not keep things dormant. Their method of learning, the technology they are exposed to, all of those things need to create a kind of fire to launch that.”

Himself a parent to two daughters, ages 25 and 18, Case stressed that he made it a point of duty to be present at the JPS Foundation’s mentorship workshop. “I am very intentional in terms of the next generation and their development,” remarked the man who continues to invest in new hires from UTech’s engineering faculty graduating classes. “I want to be able to ride off into the sunset, sit down on my rocking chair, and ensure that we have some good people out there doing good things. I love pouring into young people to energise them and to encourage them to think differently,” he shared.

FIVE-MONTH INITIATIVE

Also addressing the workshop was Winston Blackwood, JPS head of digital transformation and business effectiveness.

For his presentation titled ‘Understanding Ethical Artificial Intelligence (AI)’, Blackwood emphasised that “AI is no longer a distant concept, as it’s already embedded in everything that we do in our everyday lives”. He continued: “Whether we are streaming or doing any kind of research, there is AI working around us in various ways.”

Speaking against the five-point grounding principles of fairness, accountability, interpretability, reliability and security, which he dubbed FAIRS, the digital transformation specialist posited how the workshop participants could easily recognise whether AI use was ethical or not in highlighted examples.

“The key message I wanted the participants to leave with was that as future professionals, they can’t afford to be passive AI users. They have to be deliberate in how they design, regulate, and even watch the application and use of AI into society,” he shared.

Blackwood, who will celebrate his decade-long anniversary as a JPS employee next month, said he too utilises AI in his own deliverables on his work schedule.

“AI is increasingly a part of my own professional toolkit. In my current role, I utilise AI solutions in project management, data analysis and reporting,” he noted.

“I use AI in spotting patterns in data whenever I am creating or analysing any reports. Most of the time, if not all, I will fact-check or double-check the output, which is a part of my ethical responsibility. I also use AI to help enhance my communication. A lot of people use AI to do that. I even use it to help me develop presentations and help me to think through or identify gaps to ensure that a perspective is complete, and of course, it helps me to develop content for training at times.”

As for crossing paths with the young men and women, Blackwood said the participatory element excited him.

“They asked very relevant, sharp questions and demonstrated that they were genuinely curious and wanted to learn more and apply the learning. I was very impressed by how very quickly they connected with the concepts I shared at the session. What was also very good, for me, was the level of openness in learning and willingness to be vulnerable and share what they believed they wanted, yet they weren’t fully aware of.”

Noting that he felt inspired and energised, Blackwood divulged: “It’s a passion of mine to share with the younger generation, especially since I also had people who poured into my own journey when I was at that stage in my life ­– something that helped to shape who I am today.”

The Mentorship Programme workshop was the wrap-up event of a five-month initiative mounted by the JPS Foundation. Other speakers for the day-long workshop included JPS Media and Public Relations Manager Audrey Williams and JPS Foundation head Sophia Lewis. Williams led the discourse on the topic ‘Strategies for Professional Development’.

Lewis delivered the presentation titled ‘Preparing Yourself for opportunities in the evolving global market’. This had been crafted by the foundation’s volunteer and lecturer, Maria Arduino. Arduino is the wife of JPS Chairman Damian Obiglio.