In the July 2021 Community Chat, and with members of the Caribbean tech community, Nerissa Golden and Dr Lyndell St Ville, the panel discusses: leveraging technology to start, grow and thrive as a Caribbean entrepreneur; and united we stand: raising opportunities for collaboration to achieve success despite uncertainties.

 

This episode is also available in Apple iTunes, Google Play Music, Spotify and on Stitcher!

In the Caribbean region, the ease and cost of doing business is still a challenge, as has been recorded in the annual Doing Business reports published by the World Bank. The reasons for Caribbean countries’ modest ranking in these global reports are varied, but tend they tend stem from the policies and systemic practices that have been fostered, which ultimately have weakened the enabling business environment in countries across the region.

Having said this, attention also needs to be given to the posture and attitude of the region’s private sector, which it could be argued, may not be as aggressive or as innovative as they could be, and neither have  they been leveraging the broad range of tools that are at their disposal. This is the context that guided the discussions in our July 2021 Community Chat. However, allow us to introduce our guests and the topics that will be discussed.

 

Introducing our guests and topics

Nerissa Golden

Nerissa Golden hails from Montserrat, and is a is a storyteller, strategist and teacher. The former journalist and international speaker is the author of eight books, the most recent of which is Start, Grow, Thrive – Build a Business That Lasts.

For more than 20 years, Nerissa has helped Caribbean entrepreneurs across the globe through conferences, workshops, and one-on-one coaching to build businesses that create lasting change. Her company, Goldenmedia LLC, develops digital and traditional communication solutions for international clients who want to connect with their ideal customer and target group.

Nerissa is the founder of Montserrat’s top digital travel and lifestyle portal, Discover Montserrat, and is one of three Caribbean entrepreneurs featured in a new book by Tonya McNeal-Weary called Women Going Global. Recently, she founded a new company to lead the roll out of the Truly Caribbean Academy, an e-learning space to teach entrepreneurship and online brand building.

In working with Caribbean entrepreneurs, Nerissa is acutely aware of not only the external challenges entrepreneurs face in the region, but also the poor strategic choices they are making that in turn, are hampering the growth their businesses could realise. It is through that lens that Nerissa sought to highlight the role technology could be playing in the journey of Caribbean entrepreneurs, who still have to be coaxed to leverage ICT – although it has become increasingly integral to the operation of public and private sector organisations across the region. Hence the topic she submitted for discussion is, Leveraging technology to start, grow and thrive as a Caribbean entrepreneur.

 

Dr Lyndell St Ville

Dr Lyndell St Ville is the Owner/Chief Technology Officer at Datashore, which is based in Saint Lucia, and is a consultancy firm that offers services including, business intelligence and ICT policy development and design. He is also the Immediate Past President of the St Lucia ICT Association, and authors the Everyday Computing column for a local newspaper in Saint Lucia, which demystifies issues related to the use of technology

Lyndell has been mobilizing technology to enhance human interaction and development. He has closed innovation gaps by designing, developing, and strengthening systems in the public and private sectors. His ongoing work in Advanced Information Systems led to improvements in the resilience, reliability and tools used by organisations worldwide including: Trent University (Canada) and the Ontario Court of Justice (Canada), the National Health Service (United Kingdom), the Ministry of Public Security (Guyana) , and a variety of other local government, health and small business organisations.

With the recent commemoration of CARCIOM Day, which held on 4 July, Lyndell indicated that it prompted him to give thought to the importance of collaboration in the Caribbean experience. However, collaboration ought not only be embraced at the country-level. He thus suggested the topic, United we stand: raising opportunities for collaboration to achieve success despite uncertainties, as collaboration ought to be core a strategic consideration in the tech business space, in particular, and more so as we continue to try to navigate through the COVID-19 crisis.

 

We would love to hear from you!

Do leave us a comment either here beneath this article, or on our Facebook or LinkedIn pages, or via Twitter, @ICTPulse.

 

Select links

Below are links to some of the organisations and resources that either were mentioned during the episode, or otherwise, might be useful:

 

 

Image credits: N Golden; L St Ville; Piqsels; Nattanan Kanchanaprat (Pixabay)

Music credit: Red Peas and Rice, Ray Holman

Podcast editing support: Mayra Bonilla Lopez