News Releases

Design matters: UWI programme for the creative industry

For Release Upon Receipt - February 21, 2013

St. Augustine


ST. AUGUSTINE, Trinidad and Tobago – Entrepreneurship is very much one of the buzz words of today. With the economic landscape constantly shifting, we have to become much more innovative in the ways we sustain ourselves and our society. Young persons world over are using entrepreneurship as a medium to solve social problems on a large scale, coining the term Social Entrepreneurship.

Recently, Forbes Magazine listed the Top 30 Under 30 Social Entrepreneurs which included the likes of Hugh Evons who, along with his friend Simon Moss, now 29, launched The Global Poverty Project, which is committed to ending extreme poverty – defined as living on less than US $1.25 a day – within 25 years. Just as business entrepreneurs create and transform whole industries, social entrepreneurs act as the change agents for society, seizing opportunities others may miss in order to improve systems, invent and disseminate new approaches and advance sustainable solutions that create social value.

The University of the West Indies (UWI) St. Augustine recently introduced a postgraduate programme that targets our social entrepreneurs. The Master of Arts (MA) in Creative Design and Entrepreneurship seeks to bring together individuals with projects that demonstrate an awareness of design and entrepreneurial culture in relation to the local needs and context. It is about sustainable development, about marrying design with social benefits. It really targets people in the creative industry, including practitioners in the areas of film, fine art, graphics, animation, music, fashion, architecture, events, and advertising.

Last year’s group include Kwesi “Hoppy” Hopkinson, owner of Scorch (a lifestyle brand) and radio personality on Red 96.7FM. Hopkinson brought his idea for an environmentally friendly e-ticket and developed it while part of the programme. Today, Island E-ticket is one of the main sites used by Scorch and other enterprises to purchase tickets for their events.

Admission to this 18-month programme is based largely on a portfolio of original and effectively executed and presented work, and, on a highly original and very well structured proposal.  The proposal should aim to design some service, experience or thing that is innovative and creative, and that serves important social needs. The proposal should form the basis of the candidate’s intended final creative design project for this MA programme.

It will be considered a plus for the candidate if his or her ideas demonstrate an awareness of movements in design and entrepreneurial culture in relation to the local needs and context, particularly in relation to social entrepreneurship. 

The deadline for the September intake for this programme is February 28, 2013.

 

 

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About UWI

Over the last six decades, The University of the West Indies (UWI) has evolved from a fledgling college in Jamaica with 33 students to a full-fledged University with over 40,000 students. Today, UWI is the largest and most longstanding higher education provider in the English-speaking Caribbean, with main campuses in Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, and Centres in Anguilla, Antigua & Barbuda, The Bahamas, Belize, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, St Christopher (St Kitts) & Nevis, St Lucia, and St Vincent & the Grenadines. UWI recently launched its Open Campus, a virtual campus with 45 physical site locations across the region, serving 16 countries in the English-speaking Caribbean. UWI is an international university with faculty and students from over 40 countries and collaborative links with over 60 universities around the world. Through its seven Faculties, UWI offers undergraduate and postgraduate degree options in Engineering, Humanities & Education, Law, Medical Sciences, Science & Technology, Food & Agriculture, and Social Sciences.

 

(Please note that the proper name of the university is The University of the West Indies, inclusive of the “The”, hence The UWI.)

 

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