I’ve been on a mission to curate and moderate panels within selected events around theme such as Caribbean Women in Tech, Digital Caribbean, Caribbean Innovation, Tech Entrepreneurship, Digital Media and Digital Trends.
This past weekend at the first staging of , an event that focused on where Tech Meets Jamaican Culture, I curated and moderated a panel called League of Extraordinary Women in Tech and Culture. The goal was to have 3 women who would share their stories of how they have ben taking up more space in their respective areas in technology and culture sectors in Jamaica. I wanted them to share their brilliant insights and truths on how they see the gaps, trends and opportunities at the intersection of Technology and Jamaican Culture and how Jamaica and the creatives in the audience can position themselves for success in the local, regional and global digital economy.
And for an hour that’s exactly what happened.
Who Were The Women on the Panel
Dr. Deborah A. Hickling-Gordon – Managing Director at ink + vision Ltd
Dr. Deborah Hickling Gordon has worked across the disciplines of broadcasting, audio-visual and events production, advertising, public relations and arts management. Through her firm ink+vision Ltd, Deborah’s team provides creative business services. The i+v team curates content produced by independent creatives within the ink+vision creative community’s Writers Lab, Speakers Bureau, Broadcast Studio and Communicators Hub; and i+v provides the creative community with management services — contracts, logistics, administration, promotion and strategy.
Dr. Hickling Gordon also contributed to the crafting of Jamaica’s Culture and Creative Economy Policy. She led the inter-ministerial process of crafting Jamaica’s Creative Economy Policy Framework while serving on the National Cultural and Creative Industries Commission.
Stacey-Ann Hines – Strategist; Business Techie; VP ICD Group.
Stacey is an experienced transformation strategist and technology expert who engages with audiences in both business and personal settings. She is a passionate businesswoman with an entrepreneurial spirit who actively seeks out ways to empower and mentor. Stacey believes in creating the possibility of excellence for herself and others by being open to continuous self-improvement and fostering the creation of opportunities with relentless determination. Stacey, an author and speaker, serves as Head of Group Strategy for the ICD Group of Companies; she’s the chairman of Lifespan Spring Water and DRT Marketing & Communications and sits on the boards of other corporate as well as entrepreneurial ventures.
Iset Sankofa, Music DJ and Producer, Founder of Sankofa Sessions
Iset Sankofa forges ahead of the turntable constellation with a stunningly refreshing kinda sound. This is the ‘all genres considered’ milieu… where dusty Malian Blues takes a night stroll with Dub, Naija Hip Hop flirts dangerously with gritty Kingston Dancehall and bubbly Brazilian Electronica steams a peace-pipe with Afro-Jazz Futurism.
For this self-described ‘bird’ , she is always reaching beyond ‘the beyond’ and fetching back what she terms as musical source-code . In that, we can find a song or a groove so undeniable in its appeal that it not only builds on the idea of the universality of music, but of sound itself. Her musical selections have a way of running past the dance-able and the obvious. Usually, the next stop is a bold convergence of history and magic – one that playfully wields the listener into the lush, downright sensuous terrain that music can be.
For Sankofa, hers is an imagined and realised terrain where digital divides are effortlessly bridged in 128 BPMs. New music lifts a hat to traditional sounds via a kind of ‘time-travelling-self-discovering-remixing’ sort of aesthetic.
As a DJ/Producer she has recently been collaborating with fellow DJ/Producer The Grei Show . Early signs of magic can already be evidenced in their remix of “Wild Heart” an unforgettable rework of the album title track from break out Vancouver based songbird Desiree’ Dawson . Sankofa’s upcoming releases will continue in a similar vein, with a surprise list of Jamaica’s young musical heavyweights in tow.
She continues to break musical ground with her signature Sankofa Sessions; a heavily curated African music space. The Tuesday night sessions tell a story of Kingston’s evolving creative aesthetic running the gamut of Live painting, traditional African rhythms, the ‘nowness’ of afrobeats from Nigeria, sublime afro house frequencies from South Africa and yes dubbing and more dubbing from Jamaica’s greatest musical giants.
Next stop
I’ll be curating and moderating a panel called Sun, Sea and Innovation: The Caribbean and Diaspora in Tech in May in New York City. Stay tuned to this we will be releasing more details on speakers and sponsors shortly.
