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June 2013
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In the most recent initiative, the Faculty of Engineering and the Engineering Students Society were the local partners of the global Startup Weekend franchise in hosting the first ever Startup Weekend Trinidad & Tobago, May 22 – 24, on the St. Augustine Campus. \ One hundred and seventeen budding as well as established entrepreneurs, from four Caribbean countries, organically assembled into teams around the most popular of 57 business ideas pitched at the event’s opening session. During the two days, teams powered through ideation, customer validation, business case development, design and prototyping for their startups. The energy was electrifying. All needs were met to enable uninterrupted creativity over 54 hours: oodles of 4G wireless internet courtesy Digicel; an abundance of meals, munchies and drinks, courtesy the event’s major sponsor, iGovTT, as well as Prestige Holdings and Caribbean Bottlers; and delightful teas courtesy Chief Brand Products. The shared vision for local entrepreneurial possibilities was evident through the generous support of many sponsors which also included NEDCO, IBM, TTNIC, IEEE Trinidad and Tobago Section, Teleios, Flow, Pat & Max, Maritime, BPD Associates, Odyssey Consultinc, First Citizens Bank, Trini Trolley, Entrepreneur Spirit, Electrosign and Brightpath Foundation.\ In his keynote, Kama Maharaj shared his personal journey in building Sacha Cosmetics into the giant it is today, challenging participants along the way: “Most of the colours were developed at night on my kitchen table. How far are you prepared to go?” Brian Mac Farlane, who spoke on behalf of the judges, expressed their delight in the melding of disciplines to make magic. Pooled together, the judges’ backgrounds represented investment finance, entrepreneurship, technology, design and fashion. In the 14 coaches, participants benefitted from a rich portfolio of creative, finance, business and technical disciplines.\ The emerging start-up themes captured the rich multidisciplinary reach of attending entrepreneurs. Propositions included a mobile app for gaming as well as those to locate car parts, to find local places and events, to arrange secure local transportation services, to discover the beauty of T&T, and to provide full service for the entire tourist eco-system. Platforms were presented for crowd-funding, for innovative payment modalities, for entrepreneurial community building, for linking of NGOs, volunteers and collaborators, to facilitate e-commerce for local fashion designers, and to provide augmented reality brand development and advertising. A smart appliance converter was also presented, as was: a service for smart data driven strategies and visual analytics; technology-enabled, future design; and solutions for nano-structured super hydrophobic and oleophobic coating of structures. The top team in the end was GIA., the Tourist Eco-System mobile app. Doubles Tycoon mobile game took second place and PublicMine, the smart data driven strategies and visual analytics services, took third. All teams are committed to launching their businesses and the outpouring from the local community to support Startup Weekend Trinidad and Tobago alumni can make it happen. There is resonant consensus that all participating teams and individuals are winners, having fully engaged in the experiential learning exercise, validated their ideas and made critical connections in the growing local entrepreneur community. In the words of one energised participant: “Thank you, Startup Weekend, for making a start at filling the huge void where Trinidad & Tobago's youthful entrepreneur ecosystem should be!! This was a positively ground-breaking three-day experience for Start-ups and Upstarts all across Trinidad and Tobago. I cannot thank the organisers enough for the invaluable lessons I've learnt and for the genuinely warm, friendly and growth-oriented environment that they made possible."
To read more see http://trinidad.startupweekend.org/ and to pitch in, go to https://www.facebook.com/StartupWeekendTrinidadTobago. Participants are invited to make a submission to ICT Pulse, http://www.ict-pulse.com Startup Weekend Trinidad and Tobago was conceived, coordinated and facilitated as a supremely collaborative exercise between current and past members of staff and students at UWI’s Faculty of Engineering, along with local and foreign Startup Weekend alumni. |
Startup Weekend is a global network of passionate leaders and entrepreneurs on a mission to inspire, educate, and empower individuals, teams and communities. It focuses on building a community-empowerment model to help train and foster community leaders, ignite more entrepreneurial activity and map and connect the world’s start-up ecosystems. Founded by Andrew Hyde in July 2007 in Boulder, Colorado, the first weekend, which had 78 people attend, launched a random idea into a worldwide movement. It quickly became a nexus for early stage start-up activity in communities across the globe. In September 2010, Startup Weekend received a grant from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, allowing Startup Weekend to come closer to reaching its potential in attempting to understand the unpredictable science of successful entrepreneurship. To date more than 9000 ventures have been launched at Startup Weekends around the globe.