Off Plantations. Towards Pivots and RePositioning.

The pandemic’s most enduring feature is that it has been an accelerator of existing trends. We’re now living in one of the greatest opportunities for wealth creation in decades. But frankly, the opportunity has been here with us for a while. It’s just that the Covid19 effect – Work From Mome/Work From Anywhere, Telemedicine, and Remote Learning now represents an impending disruption of over 50% of the Caribbean’s Tourism-dependent economy.

Yet, even with years of talk about diversifying, the Region has still been too dependent on Tourism, to do the usual – provide jobs. As with over 80% of every dollar earned in the industry leaving the Region, it was never meant to provide real wealth for our people. So the pandemic has given us the unstoppable possibility of finally get off the plantation and embrace the New Caribbean emerging.

A Caribbean that’s going digital, becoming more inclusive, embracing its fringes like Cannabis, and falling in love with itself again. It’s what I’ve been seeing these last 12 years working with entrepreneurs, creatives in our tech ecosystem and inside our growing digital culture, especially through the over 300 events, I’ve produced and co-produced as a Caribbean Ecosystem Builder.

So, here we all are,  with a fantastic chance to redefine, what is “good for we”, where we can choose to reinvent and reposition ourselves for this Digital Age, but this time, beginning within. This is about moving us beyond the talk of pivots, digitization, and digital transformation and giving soul and strategy to what comes next for us.  Let me share with you what I mean by that.

The Caribbean Then and What Must Come Next.

Typically, the Caribbean’s Technology and Innovation Agenda has always been heavily influenced by the outside — by people and organisations who lend us money and who are always trying to sell us things. Some of those same people and organisations, tending to insist on telling us what they think we’re good at and what they think is best for us. With global suitors racing to capitalise on the Caribbean Digital Economy opportunities as well, now more than before we have to be mindful not to facilitate Digital Neo-Colonialism– where some believe that everything that is made elsewhere, is better than what we have there. That some of the digital/tech talent, skills, and expertise we need is not nascent in our own nations. It’s a mixture of a lack of cultural confidence paired with willful ignorance and that insidious practice of doing things as we’ve always done them.

My position is that It’s time to flip that funnel, to be more mindful, confident, and strategic in developing our Caribbean Economies, which is really now the Digital Caribbean – created by us to the world, not fed to us, by the World. So, I’m a big believer that we should seek to evolve our mindset, play to our strengths, and negotiate from a position of power.

Hence, this is the essence of my Digital Caribbean Manifesto: I believe that each Caribbean Nation must sit with itself and acknowledge the things it does best in the world, the things it already has or can have a distinct advantage in. Then marry that to the existing and emerging technologies or ones we create to further cement those strength in the Global Digital Economy.

After 14 years entrenched in the Caribbean Tech and Startup Ecosystem, having a front-row seat to the ideas, data, and trends from the minds and movement of entrepreneurs and creatives – I believe this is our best way forward.

The Caribbean Tech Talent, Skills, and Companies Exist. Use Them.

There is a New Caribbean emerging – so If we truly want to diversify our economies, we must set up our Caribbean people for success with digital skills, digital jobs, business opportunities as well as smart and patient funding across all industries. We all know this. But we must go further.

We have to embrace, amplify, and do business with our brilliant emerging and established tech entrepreneurs and creatives that I’ve seen these last 12 years across 10 Caribbean countries and in our US, Canada, and EU Diaspora. The skills, talent, products, and companies are there. They have been the visionaries and early adopters of the internet, mobile, and other technologies such as virtual reality, blockchain, artificial intelligence. Is there a bounty of them? Not as yet? How can we accelerate this? One way is for Caribbean governments and businesses voting with their procurement policies and contracts to help various tech sectors grow.  Update some laws that allow them to get funded from the grassroots and unconventional investors as well as to innovate, fail, and start again. It’s simple really.

“We must harness their cultural confidence and creative imagination so the region can take its place as a world leader in technology and innovation.” 

– Mia Mottley, PM of Barbados

 
There is no going to The Way We Were.

Technology has been remaking the Caribbean’s Economies whether we like it or not.  and I see this as a time of opportunity. Sometimes you have to shake things down to the bones, then build something new.

It’s not going to go back to the way it was, nor do we want it to. We want to move forward. I hear people saying that they can’t wait for us to get back to normal. Well, I don’t. Normal wasn’t good enough. Normal wasn’t great for most. All of this change in such a short amount of time really lays bare how shaky the ground was, to begin with.

Maybe finally, that Tourism-As-A-Plantation-Fantasy service business model that’s dominated and stifled diversity and more broad-based entrepreneurship, innovation, and wealth creation – will die. So that our future, our business as usual will be diverse and digital. We’ll see our Caribbean economies – built on our strengths, inherent cultural genius as it creates jobs, continues to inspire new businesses, and building wealth for more.

Yeah, let’s also redefine that hashtag #ILiveWhereYouVacation to possibly #I live, in a hot spot of amazing Digital innovations.

This is a piece from my weekly newsletter The SiliconCaribe Insider. Subscribe to get it fresh to your inbox every Tuesday