Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley’s speech calling for greater innovation and a digital revolution in the Caribbean region is used as the basis to examine the evolution of the Caribbean ICT/technology community.
Over the past several weeks, the Prime Minister of Barbados, Honourable Mia Mottley, has taken the world stage by storm, and has been making compelling arguments for and on behalf of Caribbean countries, and the region as whole. In some instances, she has been asking us in the region to confront our self-limiting beliefs, and to varying degrees, the paths we have chosen.
Last week Thursday, 15 October, Prime Minister Mottley opened the inaugural Pivot Event, an initiative of the Inter-American Development Bank to bring thought leaders, innovators and entrepreneurs into a single virtual space to consider the big ideas for electric mobility, digital transformation and re-imagining tourism. In her opening address, Prime Minister Mottley spoke about the barriers of self-contempt we experience as small developing countries, which she argued, has led an endemic lack of cultural confidence – although we, as a region, have been leaders and pioneers on the world stage. Hence she sought to encourage Caribbean countries, and their people, to harness their cultural confidence and creative imagination to allow the region to secure its place as a world leader in technology and innovation.
In listening to Prime Minister’s Mottley speech, I could not help but examine it with a focus on the Caribbean tech community. To a considerable degree, for nearly a decade, ICT Pulse has had a ringside seat to the development of the ICT and technology space across the region. Here are a few of our observations.
Our self-contempt is decreasing
Back in the day, when you spoke to techies, and almost without exception, there was a sense that they were modelling their experience and their expectations based on what they understood occurred in Silicon Valley in the United States. They were all versed on the journeys of well-known tech leaders, such as Steve Jobs and Elon Musk, along with all of the key start-up tools and methodologies that were available, and had been nurtured, in Silicon Valley. Additionally, techies were eager to pitch their ideas to potential investors, in the hope that the investors would pay them to develop their ideas.
Fast forward to today, and the attitude seemed to have changed. Starting about three to five years ago, Caribbean techies appear to be more focussed on their current and local realities. The serious ones has put their heads down, and have sought either bootstrap their ventures, or at the very least, to develop a prototype, which they can then leverage to secure funding.
Our own cultural confidence is growing
Over the years, there also seems to be a change in the solutions Caribbean techies are bringing to market. Five to 10 years ago, the majority of them would have been derivatives of a popular platforms or applications, such as in social networks or games, for example. As a result, their business models tended to be weak, and they really did not have unique selling propositions to underpin them.
Today, and perhaps thanks to the spate of software application development competitions that have occurred throughout the years, a lot more of the ventures and ideas seem to be rooted in local/real world problems or challenges that are being experienced, or are trying to leverage local attitudes and cultural behaviour. This shift in what is driving tech-related creativity suggests that we are appreciating the fact that our local experience has relevance, and correspondingly, we that fact that we are the ones that can serve our societies the best.
The ecosystem is improving, but is still limited
Although there are signs that the Caribbean tech community has been evolving, it can be argued that the supporting ecosystem has not kept up – although it has improved from what it was. However, it is still a challenge for tech entrepreneurs, particularly those who operate primarily in the digital space, to secure funding.
To a considerable degree, the investor community in the Caribbean is still too risk-averse. In more established ecosystems, investors know that not every investment will be a home-run, but one should be looking for the venture that will result in huge gains. That posture does not appear to be the case in the Caribbean, which in turn is hindering the development not only of the tech entrepreneurship ecosystem, but also of innovation in the region.
Tech development may still be a gimmick to policymakers
From time to time, and over the past decade, there have been rallying cries from policymakers across the region that Caribbean countries should be focussing on technology and innovation to drive wealth creation for their citizens. Most countries have hosted or participated in app development competitions, and/or have had one-off early stage accelerators programmes that provided advice and mentoring to tech start-ups. In many instances, the funding opportunities were limited. Hence although the participants might have benefited from those programmes, in fact, they did not get the support they needed to bring products to market.
Ten years later, and although the calls to focus on technology have been getting louder, very few Caribbean countries, if any, have demonstrated any commitment to make that a reality. In policy-speak, there are no plans, strategies or roadmaps, to drive that change, which it could be argued is underpinned by a lack of political will at the highest level of government.
But we are still thinking small
Finally, and although the barriers of self-contempt seem to be lowering across the region, and we appear to be growing in cultural confidence, there is a sense that we are still timid. We are focussing local challenges and opportunities, but we have yet adjusted our lenses to think more regionally, or even internationally.
Due to the small markets of most Caribbean countries, there is a solid business case for us to not be insular in our thinking – to think regionally – and to develop products that can be used beyond our local communities. However, tying back to what Prime Minister Mottley was saying in our speech, and the Caribbean experience, the Caribbean outlook, has value. We thus need to continue to recognise our own value and self-worth, and be prepared to share that with the world.
Image cedit: Free-Photos (Pixabay)
