As Trinidad and To­ba­go pre­pares for a more tech­nol­o­gy-dri­ven and en­er­gy-con­scious fu­ture, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC) has launched its SPARK Ini­tia­tive—School Part­ner­ship for Aware­ness, Re­spon­si­bil­i­ty & Knowl­edge—aimed at ex­pos­ing sec­ondary school stu­dents to mod­ern elec­tric­i­ty sys­tems and emerg­ing ca­reers in the en­er­gy sec­tor as part of its 80th an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tions.

The ini­tia­tive was of­fi­cial­ly launched on Sun­day at Na­pari­ma Col­lege in San Fer­nan­do, where gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, ed­u­ca­tors and en­er­gy sec­tor lead­ers gath­ered to high­light the im­por­tance of youth en­gage­ment in shap­ing the coun­try’s fu­ture en­er­gy land­scape.

Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties Clyde El­der com­mend­ed the pro­gramme, say­ing he was en­cour­aged by the “bright, young minds” in at­ten­dance. He stressed that Gov­ern­ment must con­tin­ue in­vest­ing in ini­tia­tives that build in­no­va­tion, re­silience and fu­ture readi­ness among young peo­ple in a rapid­ly evolv­ing glob­al en­vi­ron­ment.