Minister Wheatley Convenes First Meeting of Reconstituted National AI Task Force; Sets Policy and Legislative Deliverables
Dr. the Honourable Andrew Wheatley, Minister Without Portfolio in the Office of the Prime Minister with responsibility for Science, Technology, and Special Projects, convened the first meeting of the reconstituted National Artificial Intelligence (AI) Task Force on February 19, 2026, following a Cabinet decision to accelerate Jamaica’s national AI programme.
Minister Wheatley noted that the Task Force is intentionally designed as a multi-stakeholder national team with 23 members drawn from the public sector, academic institutions, civil society, and the private sector, bringing technical and policy expertise in AI and related areas.
In welcoming members, Minister Wheatley underscored that AI must be viewed as “core national infrastructure” and must be governed in a way that accelerates productivity and innovation while protecting Jamaicans’ rights and maintaining public trust.
The Minister reaffirmed the Government’s intent to build directly on the Task Force’s prior work, particularly the National AI Policy Recommendations and the UNESCO AI Readiness Assessment Methodology (RAM), completed in 2025.
The Task Force is chaired by Mr. Christopher Reckord and includes senior technical and policy leaders, including Mr. Trevor Forrest, Senior Advisor to Minister Wheatley; Cordel Green, Executive Director of the Broadcast Commission; Professor Sean Thorpe, Dean in the Faculty of Engineering and Computing at the University of Technology; Professor Daniel Coore, Professor of Computer Science in the Department of Computing at the UWI; Nadeen Matthews Blair, Digital Transformation and AI Strategist; Taneisha Ingleton, Executive Director of HEART/NSTA Trust; and a number of other members that represent a vast swath of stakeholders.
Clear mandate; parallel delivery
Minister Wheatley underscored that the Task Force’s core mandate is to support the development of a National AI Policy and to analyze Jamaica’s current legal and regulatory framework, including identifying gaps and recommending new legislation and/or amendments to existing legislation.
He charged the Task Force to deliver two major outputs in parallel:
- A draft national AI policy within 6–9 months, grounded in evidence and designed to be implementation-ready.
- A draft legislative framework within 12 months, including a structured review of existing laws to determine what must be updated to reflect current AI realities, and recommending an ongoing legislative review cycle to keep pace with technological change.
Broad engagement and working groups
In keeping with its Terms of Reference, the Task Force will drive structured stakeholder engagement, including national consultations, interviews, focus groups, and validation workshops, and may establish committees and working groups, with Ministries, Departments, and Agencies co-opted as needed to advance the work.