Port-au-Prince, Thursday June 16, 2016 (resonance).- The Haitian technological and financial sector woke up in dismay upon learning of the assassination of Michel Stephane Bruno, a dynamic young man who worked a lot, during his short life, for the development of the nation.
Stéphane, who held the position of Executive Director of Digital Services at SOGEBANK, died yesterday evening at Puits Blain 17, victim of an armed attack, around 9 a.m., by bandits traveling on motorcycles. These thugs wanted to seize his Toyota Land Cruiser vehicle.
Born in Port-au-Prince on May 8, 1974, Michel Stéphane Bruno is a Haitian information systems consultant, passionate about technology and the knowledge economy, who has been working for more than ten years in the field of technology at the national, regional and global level. He was first the pioneer, with Group Croissance, in the large-scale popularization of the Internet and ICT in general in Haiti by launching the first technology fair in Haiti (INFOTEL) which was organized in around ten cities different in the country.
He then spent 8 years at the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) as a National ICT Expert, during which he evolved in the field of ICT4D (ICT For Development) and e-governance. During his time at UNDP, he experimented, among other things, with community Internet access centers in remote regions of the country, established the .ht domain and laid the foundations for the modernization of Haitian public administration in through ICT.
He then joined the USAID HIFIVE project since 2009 in which he pursues financial inclusion by using ICT to make financial services accessible to a majority of the population, particularly those excluded from the traditional banking system. In particular, he ensures the strategic direction of the Haiti Mobile Money Initiative component of the HIFIVE project, which consists of introducing mobile phone payment systems in Haiti.
He is founder and member of the Board of Directors of the Haitian Association for the Development of ICT (AHTIC) of which he was Executive Director and Vice-President. He set up the Haitian Internet Exchange Point with AHTIC. He was a member of the Presidential Commission on ICT created by President Préval from 2009 to 2010, member of the executive committee, and works in the field of e-governance with the current Government under a contract with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).
Mr. Bruno is also a developer of mobile applications and a frequent contributor to regulation and public policies in the field of ICT both at the national and regional level. He frequently speaks at conferences or conventions around the world in the fields of mobile and governance. It encourages innovation and the creation of technological companies around mobile payment platforms which are becoming widespread today in Haiti.
