CDPI Team
Trinidad and Tobago built VerifyTT on open standards and shared national foundations, a platform other governments can learn from.
On 22 July 2026 in Port of Spain, the Government of Trinidad and Tobago, through iGovTT, took its digital public infrastructure story to an international audience. The 50-in-5 webinar brought together government leaders, implementation partners and policymakers from around the world. What came through was less about the technology itself than the thinking behind it. The country built VerifyTT on open standards and reusable foundations, so the state could move quickly while keeping the system in its own hands.
At the centre of the discussion was VerifyTT, Trinidad and Tobago’s national digital credentials platform. It was shown as a practical example of how digital public infrastructure can make government services more secure, efficient and accessible, and how it can build trust between citizens, institutions and employers.
Senator the Honourable Dominic Smith, Minister of Public Administration and Artificial Intelligence, framed the value at the level of the state. “Interoperability and shared digital infrastructure will reduce duplication. Ministries will no longer need to develop separate versions of the same basic capacity. Instead, they can offer services built upon common national foundations, saving public resources and accelerating delivery.”
iGovTT Chairman Ms Ria Karim pointed to what makes a programme take hold. “One of the clearest indicators of success is when demand begins to drive the programme forward, rather than government having to push adoption,” she said. She added that digital transformation “must always start with the problem, not the technology.”
Antony Muriithi of the Centre for Digital Public Infrastructure, speaking on the panel, reflected on what made the approach distinctive.
“What stood out today is that while Trinidad and Tobago could have built a product, they chose differently. They built a platform on open standards and reusable foundations, which let the state move quickly without giving up control. That’s the part other countries can replicate: not the code, but the discipline of designing for reuse, for inclusion, for complete ownership and country context from the very first use case.”
By sharing its experience openly, Trinidad and Tobago gave other countries a practical example to learn from as they work on their own digital public infrastructure.
