My name is Matthew Cowen, and for over 30 years, I’ve been exploring the world of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and their impact on our lives. I have lived in the French West Indies for approximately 20 years and dedicated that time to understanding the region from a tech perspective. I am fluent in English and French and can converse in French Creole. My passion lies in understanding how technology shapes our world, not only from a technical standpoint but in terms of its effects on society. I have devoted my time to learning and sharing it with others, and I use my experience to advise small businesses in the Caribbean.
I own a boutique consulting practice called dgtlfutures and have been lucky enough to work on various projects in the Caribbean in both the English-speaking and French-speaking territories. You can read my Curriculum Vitae, where I list significant projects. For more information contact me directly, see below.
I write a newsletter called The Future is Digital, which discusses issues surrounding digital technology, its use, and its impacts in the Caribbean. Click on Subscribe if you’d like to read it. No pressure. It strays into territories further afield at times, which is to be expected from a subject that is, by nature, global. I have been a regular guest on two podcasts over the years, ICT Pulse Podcast (Caribbean) and Innovation, Agilité, et Excellence (Canada), and discussed various tech topics on local news and radio. My goal is simple: to help businesses understand and flourish in the digital environment.
I hold a master’s in Operational Management from ESSEC Business School (Paris), and I have many industrial and sectorial certifications from UNCTAD, and Microsoft, to name a couple, and I am a certified trainer for adults.
I would love to work at your side to help you make sense of the increasingly complex digital world, providing research and analysis of the topics relevant to you, your business and the areas in which you work. No company is too small or large. I have worked for NGOs like UNESCO and USAID and with individuals on upcoming business development projects in the Caribbean.
A friend of mine calls me an “Internet bullshitter”, and in some respects, we all are. However, I’m attempting to contribute to an Internet that values authentic and valuable interactions and rejects shit-posting, rage wars, and unbridled personal data abuses. This site uses absolutely no tracking whatsoever.
You can find me on Mastodon and LinkedIn, where I post links to my newsletters and other bits and pieces. If you would like more information or to work with me, I much prefer email. You can drop me an email at matthew@dgtlfutures.com to request a chat or anything else.
Note: In the early Internet, I used the handle Virek from the character Joseph Virek in the William Gibson novel Count Zero I was reading at the time. The Internet was a very different place then, with nicknames the norm on sites like baymoo.sfsu.edu and USENET. I have kept it ever since out of nostalgia. The irony of the prescience of the character’s will to free himself of his current physical form is not lost on me, given the childish obsession of the modern-day tech-bro billionaire. Some of us read Science fiction as intended; others read it like a documentary about the future.
