The Unit­ed Na­tions De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme (UNDP) Sub-re­gion­al Of­fice for Bar­ba­dos and the Or­ga­ni­za­tion of East­ern Caribbean States (OECS) and the Young Amer­i­c­as Busi­ness Trust (YABT) will host the fi­nals, ex­po and award cer­e­mo­ny of the Caribbean In­no­va­tion Chal­lenge (CIC) on April 25-26, at the Hilton Ho­tel Re­sort in Bar­ba­dos.

The Caribbean In­no­va­tion Chal­lenge (CIC) is an in­ter­na­tion­al en­tre­pre­neur com­pe­ti­tion and busi­ness start-up ac­cel­er­a­tor for young peo­ple in Cari­com mem­ber states.Award­ing projects in three cat­e­gories (so­cial, eco­nom­ic and en­vi­ron­men­tal), the CIC pro­motes in­no­va­tion, so­cial en­ter­prise and the de­vel­op­ment of en­tre­pre­neur­ial ini­tia­tives in di­verse and new sus­tain­abil­i­ty sec­tors.

The CIC is a com­po­nent of the UNDP project Youth In­no­va­tion (Youth-IN): A Caribbean Net­work for Youth De­vel­op­ment.Dur­ing the CIC events, 20 fi­nal­ists, se­lect­ed among 493 par­tic­i­pat­ing teams, will have the unique op­por­tu­ni­ty to show­case and present their projects to in­ter­na­tion­al and re­gion­al busi­ness ex­perts. These fi­nal­ists will al­so be able to meet dif­fer­ent po­ten­tial part­ners and in­vestors.

The open­ing cer­e­mo­ny will take place on April 25, with fea­ture ad­dress­es by lo­cal gov­ern­ment and stake­hold­ers, clos­ing with an awards cer­e­mo­ny on April 26.