25 entrepreneurs chase US$75,000 in CARICOM-Based mobile app business competition – Trinidad And Jamaica Field Most Teams
KINGSTON, Jamaica – Mobile app developers s are chasing US$75,000 in cash and prizes that will be up for grabs in the PitchIT Caribbean Challenge tech entrepreneur competition.
Teams from Jamaica and Trinidad, who account for 14 of the 25 finalists, vie for honours with other regional hopefuls in the PitchIT Caribbean Challenge tech entrepreneur competition, scheduled for December 2-3, 2016 at the Hilton Trinidad and Conference Centre in Port of Spain.
The finalists, who were selected from over 70 entries from across CARICOM, include 8 teams from Trinidad & Tobago, 6 from Jamaica, 3 from Barbados, 2 from St. Lucia, and one each from Antigua & Barbuda, Dominica, Guyana, Montserrat, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, and Suriname.
Seeking partnerships, funding and even buyers for their enterprises, all competitors will pitch to a panel of judges and an audience of regional and global investors.
Following the intense two-day competition, five winners will each be awarded a coveted spot in PitchIT Caribbean business accelerators located in Barbados, Dominica, St. Kitts & Nevis and Trinidad & Tobago, as well as US$5,000 in seed funding to help develop their businesses.
The acceleration services will include mentoring by business and technology experts, networking opportunities, working space and facilities, expense-paid trips to international conferences and competitions, as well as intense product development and investor readiness training.
Commenting on the process and the finalist selection, project manager Bianca Welds explained that “tech entrepreneurs, both those in our training programme and the wider CARICOM, responded very well to our invitation to the challenge. The quality of ideas presented made our job of selecting 25 very challenging, but we are excited by the diversity shown and believe that we have a strong set of finalists and the showcase in December is highly anticipated.”
The finalists by country are: TickeTing from Antigua & Barbuda; Rivver, Fix Device, and Data-Bus from Barbados; Buzzshop from Dominica; Click-n-Learn from Guyana; Tikkiz, QuickPlate, Driving Change, Shopmobi, Atendify and The Interview JM from Jamaica; IndeTours from Montserrat; Teacher’s Pet and Dev758 Restaurant from St. Lucia; Oversea from St. Vincent & the Grenadines; A Creative Person from Suriname; and Optimo Cloud, SKED, AmAthletes, Communicare, Tech4Agri, D Carnival scene, EveDrop and The Billionaires League from Trinidad & Tobago.
On November 30 and December 1, the 25 finalists will participate in a pitching bootcamp that will prepare them for the key competition days of December 2 and 3.
PitchIT Caribbean
PitchIT Caribbean is a programme aimed at enhancing the mobile app development ecosystem across CARICOM. It is designed to accelerate mobile app entrepreneurs through the start-up life cycle, which runs from ideation to pitch, from pitch to market and from market to maturity.
It currently supports 4 Hubs, one each in Barbados, Dominica, St. Kitts and Nevis, and Trinidad & Tobago.
PitchIT Caribbean is the central operation of the Caribbean Mobile Innovation Project, which is part of the Entrepreneurship Programme for Innovation in the Caribbean (EPIC), an initiative funded by the Government of Canada and executed by infoDev/World Bank Group, through a three-party Caribbean consortium, led by UWI Consulting Inc., working along with Mona School of Business and Management, and Mona Business Support Services.
