Entrepreneurship reached the peak of its sexiness, about three years ago. The global narrative became the Caribbean’s way of thinking too. It was that anyone, could become an entrepreneur, with some even insisting, that everyone should. After all, it’s the Digital Age and this beautiful tool called the Internet, had really leveled the playing field.
While, I have always been a big believer in the power of the Internet and the Caribbean entrepreneur’s ability to leverage technology to do amazing things, I am Happy that I am now seeing signs that we are passed the hype phase, the doing what is trendy mode… to bring the global gaze back home and to dig a little deeper. We seem to be genuinely looking at what is happening right beneath our own noses…problems to solve, desires to fill…we seem to exploring more of what is happening in our own head and heart.
Having listened to over 1000 Caribbean tech entrepreneurs from 10 Caribbean countries pitch ideas at meetups,hackathons and other competitions over past couple of years….I quickly recognized, that it’s been too easy to get caught up in doing what’s trending elsewhere, seeking validation and measuring our success based on someone else’s criteria. It’s always harder to figure out our own game, our own strengths and ask ourselves…how do I use the Internet, this mobile phone, the blockchain, this access to digital skills, open data and global knowledge pool to do something that matters. That to the community you live in, to the country you call home and to you.
We live in an unprecedented time of being able to do great things with technology, so I look forward to seeing more Caribbean entrepreneurs spending more time with the challenge of figuring out what matters, then set about executing on that.
