Our experience with UWI demonstrates that UTT should not be a university geared mainly towards certification of graduates, with staff that produce learned papers simply for publication and as a means towards promotion. UTT has to become a very strong intellectual university linked very closely with industry into one community which strives to develop highly sophisticated technologies and be sensitive to the creative activities that it fosters and are taking place in industry.

The first task then is for its visionaries to put together a team of leaders, its professors, who are of like mind and who understand the need to build this technical community of scholars. Hence simply advertising for professors, senior lecturers, lecturers etc. en masse in the various areas of electrical, mechanical or whatever is not the way to build the UTT of this vision. This is the way that has become institutionalised at UWI and where the hope is that by luck someone will turn up who will do something. When this leadership is in place then the brainstorming has to begin on what areas are to be chosen as foci and then how do we put together an education and training system (including staff) to build the required knowledge.

Together with this the local and regional industry has to be examined with the hope of identifying the basic clusters that can form part of this technical community. Clearly the energy sector may be one such cluster, however, its vertically integrated and outward looking industrial culture would have to be modified. UTT has to engage this cluster in knowledge transfer and creation, technical experimentation so as to begin to build the network.

 UTT will be to all an education and training institution. Its Point Lisas (TTIT) campus is rapidly developing a reputation of being able to put out well-qualified operatives. UTT (entrepreneurial) has to, even before it begins to train its first undergraduate, attempt to develop regional and local links with industry via its outreach (continuing education, Masters, Diploma) programmes using the most up to date delivery technologies. As a result the learning methodology of UTT is crucial and one of the first tasks of its leadership is to decide on an efficient technique, say, along the lines of the Virtual University of, and the University of Tec de Monterrey itself. This system will necessarily be different from employing a lecturer or a senior lecturer to teach a course and give him or her the flexibility to teach a course controlled only by a course outline. The professor in charge of a course or programme is really the course leader who designs the course or programme. With the help of course tutors, material programmers, graphic designers and the like, the course or programme is built and put on-line for electronic/video delivery. Junior staff get involved in the tutorials and student support. This is indeed team learning.  UTT has to effectively integrate the traditional face to face and distance learning modes.

The idea is to have UTT funded by both government and the private sector. Clearly the private sector needs operatives and traditionally the country’s government and the population at large pay to train such employees while the companies pay taxes. A further contribution to university training by the private industry has to be rewarded via access to training, relevant research and development by the companies. This will be crucial in the creation of this networked community,

UTT has to encourage its graduates and others to start new companies. Hence availability of business incubators, venture capital funds will be necessary. Governments readily forego taxes etc. to encourage disparate firms to locate in an industrial park or a free zone with no long-term return. They even give tax concessions for FDI to exploit cheap natural resources. GOTT will have to be encouraged instead to invest in venture capital in the beginning to help generate the start-ups in this fledgling technical community.

In summary UTT has to:

1    Encourage its Point Lisas campus to continue in the meantime with the training of operatives for the various sectors.
2    Emphasise that its mission is also to create this community of technical scholars networked to local and regional industry
3    Employ as a first step its professorial leaders for UTT (entrepreneurial) who should be charged with building the learning systems both human and delivery systems.
4    Encourage its graduates (in house, in company) to start new firms using the technical knowledge gained in the community
5    Encourage the companies in its community to offer corporate venturing opportunities to startups
6    Obtain concessions from governments to create venture capital funds for startups
7    Help create a science-industrial park as the physical location of its technical community

UTT (entrepreneurial) should not start at the input end of inviting applicants from high school but at the industry end to build its community of technical scholars. This will give it the direction that its learning systems should take.