The Honourable Camille Robinson-Regis, Minister of Planning and Development is pleased to announce that the 12 local start-up companies selected for a business mentorship opportunity with Silicon Valley executives are currently participating in the Tech Beach Retreat Technology Conference in Jamaica from November 29 to December 1, 2018. This sponsorship is implemented via the Ministry’s Global Services Promotion Programme (GSPP) with support from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). These 12 local start-up companies were selected from over 160 applicants who submitted entries over a one week period from November 17 to 23, 2018.
The successful startups and their areas of focus are Smart Kids Educational Club Ltd: Primary and Secondary Science & Technology Education; Digital Tickets Ltd: Events Services; WiPay: Financial Tech; Travee Technologies Ltd: Peer-to-Peer Ride Sharing; Sell Your Stuff: Online Classifieds; Wyld Festival Limited: E-Commerce Apparel and Fashion; Plantain Ltd: Family Ancestry Digital Storytelling Platform; ROAM TRAVELS TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO: Leisure,Travel and Tourism; Soca Words: Soca Music Lyric Catalogue; Destination Trinidad and Tobago: Leisure, Travel and Tourism; Trinidad App Brewery: Professional Training and Coaching; Foodie Nation: Culinary and Leisure Blog.
While attending the Tech Beach Technology Conference, currently in its third year, the selected participants mentioned are being paired with mentors from some of the leading Silicon Valley companies. The representatives of these local start-up businesses will get invaluable business and entrepreneurial guidance and support from proven experts such as the Lead of the Virtual and Augmented Reality Team from You Tube; the Director of Photography and Lighting at Pixar Studios; the Global Programme Manager of Air BnB; Learning and Development personnel from Face Book; Lucidworks; Global Traffic Technologies among other successful Silicon Valley entities.
This sponsorship falls in line with a key theme of Trinidad and Tobago’s National Development Strategy (Vision 2030), which is to build globally competitive businesses. It also provides opportunities for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), startup companies, the unemployed and underemployed to grow their businesses and business ideas through training and skills development. Another goal of this programme, which also dovetails with the goals of the Ministry’s GSPP, is to strengthen small businesses’ capacity to engage in global exportation of their services. This sponsorship opportunity therefore encourages startup businesses to maximize their potential by being able to access the skills of proven global professionals who can contribute to their overall growth. Minister Robinson-Regis encouraged the participants to take advantage of the time spent with the mentors, use it as a spark to ignite their passion and to share with other start-ups upon their return.
Initiated on January 17, 2017, the Global Services Promotion Programme is a loan agreement between the Government of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago through the Ministry of Planning and Development and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). This Programme is geared towards micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and the general objective is to support the advancement of Trinidad and Tobago’s positioning as a renowned location for the global provision of Information Technology enabled Services (ITeS).