Project Origins

CaribData began with a shared recognition that we, in the Caribbean, need more accessible and better-shared data to support decision-making and regional development. While our early efforts focused on open health data, our broader aim has always been to encourage data sharing across disciplines and countries. At the heart of our approach is the belief that storytelling can help make data more meaningful and foster a stronger culture of sharing.

While storytelling is a powerful goal, it’s a new and unfamiliar skill for many data producers. In our resource-limited SIDS, building the systems and habits needed for regular, meaningful, audience-specific storytelling backed by shareable data is a major challenge. It's a journey, not a quick fix.

By strengthening capacity, improving infrastructure, and building trust, we hope to support better use of the data we already collect—guided by our own Caribbean priorities and realities.

You can read more about our ideas behind data-sharing and storytelling in these articles, from our project lead, Ian Hambleton.

Articles

• Data Availability in Small Islands

• Embracing Open Data

Our Original Project Justification

Abstract

The Caribbean is producing more and more digital data every year, yet much of it remains scattered, hard to access, or underused. While other regions have built strong systems for sharing and using data, the Caribbean still faces big gaps—especially when it comes to planning for disasters, tackling climate change, supporting health, or making smart decisions for development.

CaribData is a regional effort to change that. Led by The University of the West Indies, the project is building a stronger foundation for sharing, using, and learning from data across the Caribbean. It focuses on three big goals:

• Better infrastructure – Create a shared regional data hub to store and connect valuable public datasets.

• Stronger skills – Train and mentor people across the region in how to analyze, share, and tell stories with data.

• Bigger impact – Use real data to tell powerful stories that inform policy, inspire action, and improve lives.

Open data is a public good, but in the Caribbean, it’s often locked away or underused. That’s a missed opportunity. CaribData treats poor access to data as a barrier to progress—and aims to change that by promoting policies, training, and tools to unlock its value.

Through datathons, workshops, and storytelling, the project brings together governments, researchers, and communities to solve real challenges—starting with climate and health. It also promotes innovation, including the citizen-science led datathon and its use of large-language models and AI to build a prototype storytelling platform.

CaribData is just the beginning. With a scalable model and a regional approach, the project lays the groundwork for a future where Caribbean data is more open, more useful, and more powerful—for everyone.