Grenada Launches Business Grants For Innovators And Entrepreneurs At CARCIP Awareness Day

Innovators and entrepreneurs in Grenada will soon benefit from a suite of new grant funding opportunities. The Grenada Ministry of Communications, Works, Physical Development, Public Utilities, ICT and Community Development will launch the business grants and outline the application process at an event called CARCIP Awareness Day.

“Innovative firms and individual drive new products, processes and services that create growth and employment. Innovation boosts productivity, which is the key to faster economic growth and rising living standards,” said Alice Bain, who coordinates the Caribbean Regional Communications Infrastructure Program (CARCIP) in Grenada.

The Grenada government, through CARCIP, has promoted collaboration between industry experts, the private sector and government to generate new opportunities for technology-enabled businesses. The CARCIP Awareness Day will reveal the various opportunities available under the program.

Held at the Grenada Trade Centre Annex on May 19, the event will start with an opening ceremony at 9.30 am, and continue with interactive sessions throughout the afternoon. A slate of technology experts will share perspectives on the potential of telecommunications technology to transform regional business, government and society.

“Technology is a cross cutting sector and has implications for all individuals and businesses. The fact is that the Internet is growing rapidly and no one should be left behind,” Bain said.

The event is part of the wider ongoing effort by the Grenada government to support Internet-based economic growth, under the umbrella of CARCIP. The objective of CARCIP is to increase access to regional broadband networks and advance the development of an ICT-enabled services industry in the Caribbean Region.

Funded by the International Development Association of the World Bank and coordinated by the Caribbean Telecommunications Union, CARCIP seeks to help governments and private sector to harmonise the development of critical telecommunications infrastructure across three participating Eastern Caribbean countries—Grenada, Saint Lucia and St Vincent and the Grenadines.

CARCIP Awareness Day is free and open to the public.

Google, Netflix to join Caribbean Internet service providers for historic gathering

If you live in the Caribbean, you don't need to be a computer expert to know that the region's Internet services need to improve.

If your connection falters so often that you've long since stopped calling customer service for redress, then you’ve got a pretty good idea about the challenges of regional connectivity.

Or if you’ve ever tried to launch a web-based startup, but have found yourself at a competitive disadvantage simply because download or upload speeds aren't cutting it, then you have already have a decent understanding of why the region needs more robust Internet infrastructure.

No further expertise needed.

Of course, fixing the underlying issues that cause those problems is another matter, requiring technical expertise, commerce negotiations and a healthy dose of good old-fashioned collaboration.

That’s precisely the mission of the Bevil Wooding, Shernon Osepa and a volunteer group of Caribbean Internet experts going by the name CaribNOG. They are behind the upcoming Caribbean Peering and Interconnection Forum (Carpif) to be held in Barbados from May 27 to 28.

The event is being organised by the Caribbean Network Operators Group (CaribNOG), with support from Packet Clearing House (PCH), the Internet Society (ISOC) and the Caribbean Telecommunications Union (CTU). It will bring together high-level Internet industry players from across the region and around the world.

It marks the first time that Caribbean Internet service providers and major international content providers such as Google, Akamai and Netflix, will be gathering in the Caribbean for this kind of interaction, said Wooding, Internet Strategist with PCH.

"Internet Peering fora are commonplace in other regions of the world. They are used to bring Internet service providers and content providers from across the spectrum of the Internet ecosystem into one space to build relationships, broker agreements and discuss matters related to the development and strengthening of the peering relationships that underpin the Internet," Wooding told the Guardian.

As an outcome of the upcoming Carpif, regional consumers can look forward to a more stable, resilient, efficient Caribbean Internet, he said.

Growing Internet economy Shernon Osepa, Manager of Regional Affairs for Latin America and the Caribbean at ISOC, said "the forum is a testament to the growth and maturity that has taken place in the Caribbean Internet landscape over the past few years."

He explained that the meeting will address “strategies for encouraging and increasing local digital content development, and opportunities for content delivery network operators in the Caribbean.”

Internet exchange point (IXP) operators, infrastructure providers, Internet service providers (ISPs), policymakers and regulators make up the list of registered attendees for the event. The wide range of participants will gain valuable insight into “how the Caribbean can maximise the opportunities that can be derived for greater interconnection and peering," said Bernadette Lewis, secretary general of the CTU.

That organisation has been playing a major role in bringing regional governments into a greater appreciation of the value of creating a healthy regional Internet ecosystem. Strengthening the region’s critical Internet infrastructure is now widely understood to be a necessary first step to strengthening its Internet economy, as online commerce remains a largely underexploited way for local businesses to deliver local services for local Internet users.

Originally published: Trinidad and Tobago Guardian

Woman's work: Birthing Caribbean entrepreneurs

You really don’t know what to expect when you put a dozen-plus Caribbean entrepreneurs in one room for a week.

But one thing was clear when 15 entrepreneurs—all women—came together in Port of Spain in April. It was the start of something good.

The ladies gathered to share experiences and build strategies for future collaboration. Besides their Caribbean heritage and passion for productivity, these go-getters had something else in common. Each had been competitively selected to take part in the first-ever facilitators training for the Women's Innovation Network of the Caribbean (WINC) program. The initiative is a World Bank project to support woman entrepreneurs in the region. It is funded via the Canada Development Bank.

The one-week workshop focused on teaching participants how to run courses targeted at other goal-oriented women in their home territory. Up to 10 of the 15 would receive funding to run the course for one year. For Nerissa Golden, though, the big win wasn’t in the funding but the friendships.

“This has been an incredible opportunity to connect with other women who share this same passion for entrepreneurship and empowering others to launch and grow a business,” she said.

Goldenmedia, the company that she started 12 years ago in Montserrat, is a small business rooted primarily in the cultural and technology industries, and specialising in publicity and multimedia content creation for brands and entrepreneurs.

“The other ladies and I decided even before arriving in Port of Spain that the greater gift was in having this new connection and awareness that we weren't alone in our desire to serve our communities with business growth programmes. We’re already exploring ways that we can work together to help each other achieve our business goals long after the project funding runs out. Each woman is a professional in various disciplines and so the opportunity to learn from them has been quite a gift. We've all been strengthened by being able to connect and find common ground on which we want to build future collaborations.”

Breeding entreprise WINC is part of the Entrepreneurship Program for Innovation in the Caribbean (EPIC), which is being implemented by infoDev, a global multidonor program in the Trade and Competitiveness Global Practice of the World Bank Group, with support from Canada's Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development (DFATD).

The program is being implemented across the region by Enterprise Hub a T&T-based company specialising in providing support services to a wide range of start-ups and established entrepreneurs. Enterprise Hub founder and lead consultant Ashley Mitchell, himself an entrepreneur, said that "intermediary agencies," such as the World Bank's infoDev, can be a significant source of financial support for budding businesses.

Beyond simply acting as a bridge to start-up financing, Enterprise Hub works alongside the business owners to open their eyes to fresh opportunity, enhance their ability for innovation and increase their tolerance for risk-taking. Encouraging people to take initiative and challenge received wisdom—even within the constraints of a full-time job—is crucial to unlocking the region's entrepreneurial potential, Mitchell said.

"Our young people have been conditioned and sheperded over time to simply get on a track of academic pursuit. There's nothing wrong with that but it's not for everyone. Some of our Caribbean people are very willing to take entrepreneurial risks but that ability is not being harnessed in a constructive way by our formal education systems."

Entrepreneurship, says Mitchell, is a mindset. And you can act entrepreneurially even without ever leaving your job, he said.

Nor should local entrepreneurship depend on foreign agencies or even national governments, Golden underscored.

“Entrepreneurship is still one of the sexy topics for governments and international donor agencies. However, we have to see it not as a ‘hot topic’ but essential to how every nation is going to grow its economy."

More cohesion is needed in how programs are implemented across the Caribbean, as many have the similar goals but resources are not used efficiently, she said.

“I would like to see more entrepreneurs being given the capacity to unleash their ideas by having the financial support they need, the theoretical knowledge and the access to markets. Bottom line is entrepreneurship challenges won't be solved by governments, only entrepreneurs can do that,” she said.

A life's work Golden participated in the Grow Your Business boot camp, another WINC project, in 2013 and 2014, and before that had been working with entrepreneurs for more than 10 years, through Goldenmedia.

“My vision is to create opportunities for the Caribbean to grow and an important way to do this is through the media. Most of what will generate revenue and transform our nations are the ideas inside of us waiting to be unleashed. I like being a part of providing the platforms as well as guiding how these messages can connect with the people ready to hear it.”

She said she saw WINC as a way to continue with her life’s work.

“Much of the work I do is centered around job creation and empowerment, so this is an extension of that. I began hosting my own entrepreneurship conferences in 2006 simply because I realised other people had the same need as I did to learn about starting a business.”

The latest WINC initiative, coordinated by the Enterprise Hub, covered eight subject areas including Marketing, Technology, Networking and Financial Management, giving Golden and others rich resource from which to draw for future growth.

“I am looking forward to first implementing the new ideas I learned or were reinforced this week to help my company continue along a growth path, then it will be extended out to Montserrat and neighbouring islands,” she said.

Originally published: Trinidad and Tobago Guardian