Dr. Camella Rhone This is Me

 View all 26 references Web References

1. 1. COUNCIL MEMBERS

   www.crosq.org/council_members. - [Cached]

   Published on: 1/4/2008   Last Visited: 4/26/2008

   Dr. Camella Rhone Executive Director, Bureau of Standards Jamaica

2. 2. Antigua Sun

   www.antiguasun.com/paper/?as=v - [Cached]

   Published on: 2/16/2006   Last Visited: 2/17/2006

   That's according to Camella Rhone, chief executive officer of the Caricom Regional Organisation for Standards and Quality (CROSQ).
   
   She was speaking recently following a meeting in Antigua that would have seen the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the OAS, Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association (CHTA) and Caribbean Tourism Organisation (CTO).
   ...
   Rhone recently attended the three-day symposium on tourism and when asked by the SUN how difficult or easy it will be for all Caribbean countries to conform to the same standards, she clarified what she termed as "the myth of what a standard is.
   
   "A standard is not necessarily the highest quality; it is the minimum acceptable quality. So in other words, there are some basic issues of safety, of health, of security, that every single establishment that is offering a service to somebody who is coming into your environment must have. Now, if you cannot offer it, you have no business being in the industry," she explained.
   
   She pointed to the fact that the standards basic requirements are probably being applied by people involved in the tourism industry in the region.
   
   Rhone said the purpose of the MOU is to document those standards and share it across the region.
   
   She said establishing basic standards will still allow for competition between different destinations because they can extend their service beyond the basic requirements.
   
   Most particularly, she said if hoteliers brand themselves as something more than the standard, then the customer will expect to pay more for that service, as long as the service is worth it. Rhone said if the Caribbean wants to benchmark with international standards, then the people, who visit us, need to have guidelines to tell them what to expect.

3. 3. JIS Homepage

   www.jis.gov.jm/Ministry_News/m - [Cached]

   Published on: 6/20/2003   Last Visited: 6/20/2003

   Director General in the Ministry of Commerce, Science and Technology, Camella Rhone has highlighted the need to develop strategies that would bridge the digital divide among Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Member States.
   
   "Within our countries we have a digital divide; across countries we have digital divide and within CARICOM there is digital divide," she said, adding that these needed to be bridged.
   
   She was speaking recently at a media briefing for journalists on the upcoming 24th CARICOM Heads of Government meeting, which will be held in Montego Bay from July 2 to 5. The issue of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and development of the region is among the topics for discussion at the meeting next month.
   
   She pointed out that a CARICOM Working Group on ICT, of which Jamaica is a member, was established to provide guidance on an ICT strategy for CARICOM. "The strategy is based on having social and economic development as its centre," the Director General said.
   
   She observed that the territories of CARICOM were at different stages of the process "to move the Caribbean from a non-digital economy to one that uses the digital technologies for economic development". However, she said that the process was being pursued using four different approaches including: Policy formulation, legal and regulatory issues, electronic readiness and demonopolisation or liberalisation.
   
   Policy, she noted, should focus on enabling competition as well as providing the "maximum growth of human resources" that would facilitate the development of the services economy and the movement of persons for the development of ICT. "ICT provides a strong base for growth in a knowledge-based society," she emphasised, adding that access to technology should be at affordable prices.
   
   The Director General said that the working group was striving to ensure that each member state developed a policy that addressed ICT and trade-related issues, particularly in light of the upcoming Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME), the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).
   
   Mrs. Rhone also said that a CARICOM connectivity agenda, which began in February this year, would be examining ways in which it might pull the region together as a people.
   ...
   Discussing the government's efforts to introduce legislation Camella Rhone, Director General in the Ministry of Commerce, Science and Technology says that consultations have been held which evaluated the international legislative environment.
   ...
   Ms. Rhone believes that it is "critical for us to get the framework" in line with Protocol II of the Amendment to the Treaty of Chaguaramas, establishing CARICOM and the CARICOM Single Market and Economy".
   ...
   On the matter of intellectual property, Ms. Rhone says there is the need for Jamaican artistes to focus on getting royalties from their music sales over the Internet.
   
   The Director-General says it all boils down to, "the issue of trust". She says that whatever is transacted across the Internet or by digital means must be received in the same manner in which it was sent.
   ...
   The necessity of the legislation then, according to Ms. Rhone is to give, "a certain amount of trust and make people (foreign investors) know that they can deal with Jamaica because they have put in place the kinds of laws that would safeguard the security of transaction".
   
   This sense of security would filter down to the justice system where businesses would feel they could get redress in the courts, she points out.
   ...
   Director-General in the Ministry of Commerce, Science and Technology, Camella Rhone has encouraged all sectors of society to buy into the vision of the National Information Infrastructure (NII) by using all the elements at its disposal and building on it as the platform.
   
   Ms. Rhone told JIS News that the NII is a network of information, creating links from one person to another, between one organization and another, and from one government agency to another. "The beauty of the world wide web is that it facilitates that sort of environment (networking), costing virtually nothing…all you need is the knowledge to do it," she added.
   ...
   Speaking on the shift in emphasis from computer laboratories to classrooms, Ms. Rhone said, "We wish the computers would come out and go into the classrooms, and that community centres would use it for community development."
   
   In addition, Ms. Rhone called for libraries to regain their position as the social, economic and information centres and further bemoaned the lack of linkages between public sector, private sector and civil society.
   
   She stressed that persons in the information industry should ensure that the information exchanged across this network is value-added. "People should want to visit to create music, to print CDs, to sell products," she suggested.
   
   Commenting on the private sector's involvement in networking, Ms. Rhone said that the "bottom-line is that our little business clusters that we have linked in one direction must be linked in all directions.