Lisa Hanna, the opposition spokesperson on youth, information and culture, has urged a fresh approach to job creation on the island.

In her Sectoral Debate presentation last week, Hanna bemoaned the state of the traditional export areas and said that Government must lead the way in creating new industries to absorb Jamaican youth, as well as to earn foreign exchange.

Hanna said that the area of culture was ripe for the picking and Jamaicans should tap into the reservoir by way of technology, which is available at the fingertips of young people.

"We should have a cadre of young people around the island whose only objective is to develop live content, harnessing the best of Brand Jamaica for JTB/JTI to sell over the Internet and other 3G technology. This could be another positive use of the money from the Universal Access Fund to develop this cadre of young persons and benefit from this enterprise," Hanna said in her presentation to the House of Representatives.

Perfect platform

The South East St Ann Member of Parliament said that Jamaica had a competitive advantage in the area of culture. She said the "rhythm of how we do things as Jamaicans gives us the perfect platform for live content".

"We can all remember the breaking of the world record in Beijing being celebrated by Usain (Bolt) doing the 'Gully Creeper'. Imagine if we had a link on Google right after that 100-metre race so that when someone did a search on Bolt/Jamaica, that took you directly to a JTB/download of 'How to Dance Jamaican' for a fee of US$3.00," Hanna suggested.

She told the House that Jamaica, with its strong brand, must position itself to take advantage of the desire by many people around the world to learn about the country.

"We need a cultural policy to make a cultural superstate. We are already a people of cultural superstars. It is now for the State to become a partner as a superstate," Hanna said.

Meanwhile, Hanna told Parliament that Jamaica was in danger of falling behind if the State did not equip its youth with the skills to survive in the ever-changing world.

"The rest of the world is currently preparing students for jobs that don't yet exist, using technologies that have not yet been invented in order to solve problems we don't even know are problems yet," she told Parliament.

"We are living in exponential times and until we recognise this, we will continue to equip our young people with skills to compete in a world that is rapidly disappearing without providing them with the requisite resources to correct the long-term damage," the 1993 Miss World-turned-politician told Parliament.