Raphael John-Lall

For­mer pres­i­dent of the Su­per­mar­ket As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (SATT) Ra­jiv Diptee is en­cour­ag­ing lo­cal en­tre­pre­neurs to seek for­eign mar­kets, but he is ad­vis­ing them that they must cre­ate world-class prod­ucts to en­able their en­try in­to those mar­kets.

Speak­ing at an en­tre­pre­neur­ship fo­rum at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) last week, Diptee high­light­ed the crit­i­cal im­por­tance of ex­port readi­ness for en­tre­pre­neurs, em­pha­sis­ing that lo­cal ven­tures must be built with glob­al stan­dards, ef­fi­cien­cy and com­pet­i­tive­ness in mind.

“En­ter­ing in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets re­quires more than a good prod­uct, it de­mands strong op­er­a­tional sys­tems, com­pli­ance with mar­ket reg­u­la­tions, de­pend­able sup­ply chains, and the abil­i­ty to meet con­sis­tent qual­i­ty re­quire­ments.”

Diptee en­cour­aged en­tre­pre­neurs to view ex­port readi­ness as a long-term strate­gic process, in­volv­ing mar­ket re­search, pack­ag­ing and la­belling stan­dards, lo­gis­ti­cal plan­ning and con­tin­u­ous im­prove­ment.

He al­so un­der­scored that T&T has sig­nif­i­cant po­ten­tial to ex­pand its ex­port foot­print.

Diptee spoke at the Glob­al En­tre­pre­neur­ship Week (GEW) host­ed by the Fac­ul­ty of Food and Agri­cul­ture, De­part­ment of Agri­cul­tur­al Eco­nom­ics and Ex­ten­sion in part­ner­ship with the Fac­ul­ty of So­cial Sci­ences, De­part­ment of Man­age­ment Stud­ies, the En­tre­pre­neur­ship Unit, the UWI En­tre­pre­neur­ial So­ci­ety, and the Aca­d­e­m­ic Lounge at the En­gi­neer­ing Lec­ture The­atre 1 at the UWI St. Au­gus­tine Cam­pus on No­vem­ber 19.

This year’s cel­e­bra­tion echoed a mes­sage em­bed­ded in its theme: “To­geth­er We Build.”

Glob­al En­tre­pre­neur­ship Week is cel­e­brat­ed across more than 200 coun­tries an­nu­al­ly. It is a world­wide move­ment de­signed to in­spire, con­nect and em­pow­er peo­ple to ex­plore their po­ten­tial as in­no­va­tors, cre­ators, and busi­ness lead­ers.

The main point of the pro­gramme’s speak­ers was to show that en­tre­pre­neur­ship is not lim­it­ed to tra­di­tion­al busi­ness ar­eas. It is an ecosys­tem that in­cludes tech­nol­o­gy, trade, agri­cul­ture, acad­e­mia, youth de­vel­op­ment, or­gan­i­sa­tion­al cul­ture and pub­lic pol­i­cy.

In­no­va­tion

Chair­man of the In­no­va­tion As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad & To­ba­go Emer­son John-Charles, who al­so spoke at the event, em­pha­sised how im­por­tant new ideas are and how ISO stan­dards can help make coun­tries and re­gions more com­pet­i­tive.

He stressed that in­no­va­tion needs to be or­gan­ised, quan­tifi­able and in line with best prac­tices around the world.

“En­tre­pre­neurs and busi­ness­es can make their sys­tems stronger and more re­li­able by us­ing ISO frame­works, es­pe­cial­ly those that help with qual­i­ty man­age­ment, in­no­va­tion man­age­ment, and mak­ing or­ga­ni­za­tions more ef­fi­cient.”

He point­ed out that ISO stan­dards help busi­ness­es in the Caribbean grow be­yond their lo­cal mar­kets by mak­ing things more con­sis­tent, low­er­ing risks and boost­ing cred­i­bil­i­ty. His mes­sage made it clear that re­al in­no­va­tion is not guess­work, but a dis­ci­plined process.

Agri­cul­tur­al and food trade econ­o­mist David For­ge­nie, who was an­oth­er speak­er, talked about the im­por­tant is­sue of food se­cu­ri­ty in the Caribbean and how en­tre­pre­neur­ship is key to mak­ing the re­gion’s agri­cul­tur­al and food sys­tems stronger.

He said Caribbean coun­tries still re­ly heav­i­ly on food im­ports, which makes them vul­ner­a­ble to glob­al shocks, cli­mate change and changes in the mar­ket.

For­ge­nie al­so said new agri-en­tre­pre­neurs are very im­por­tant for chang­ing this trend by mak­ing val­ue chains that last, mak­ing lo­cal pro­duc­tion bet­ter, and bring­ing in tech­nol­o­gy-based so­lu­tions. He told stu­dents and peo­ple in the in­dus­try to see agri­cul­ture not as a tra­di­tion­al field, but as a place full of chances for new ideas, mon­ey and changes in the econ­o­my.

PhD can­di­date Satesh Sookhai al­so helped plan and run the event. He worked close­ly with the or­gan­is­ing teams to make sure the pro­gramme was a suc­cess and had a big im­pact.

He end­ed by re­peat­ing the main point of the event, which was that the uni­ver­si­ty needs to work to­geth­er more close­ly. He stressed that de­part­ments, fac­ul­ties and ad­min­is­tra­tive units need to work to­geth­er more close­ly to cre­ate a live­ly en­tre­pre­neur­ial spir­it on cam­pus.

Sookhai says that this kind of co­op­er­a­tion be­tween cam­pus­es is nec­es­sary to help stu­dents be­come in­no­va­tors, boost re­search-dri­ven en­tre­pre­neur­ship, and make UWI St. Au­gus­tine a re­gion­al leader in de­vel­op­ing en­tre­pre­neurs.

Ir­shad Mo­hammed, UWI’s En­tre­pre­neur­ship Ma­jor Stu­dent of the Year 2024/2025, gave a speech that talked about how the en­tre­pre­neur­ship pro­gramme had a big ef­fect on his per­son­al and aca­d­e­m­ic growth.

He said that be­ing an en­tre­pre­neur changed the way he thinks and got him ready to help the Caribbean’s econ­o­my and so­ci­ety grow. He stressed that be­ing an en­tre­pre­neur is more than just start­ing a busi­ness; it is a way of think­ing that in­cludes cre­ativ­i­ty, re­silience, prob­lem-solv­ing and brav­ery.

One of the main ideas dis­cussed at the fo­rum was sus­tain­abil­i­ty. It was im­por­tant for young Caribbean en­tre­pre­neurs to build busi­ness­es that help com­mu­ni­ties and the en­vi­ron­ment. He told the stu­dents to be­lieve in their ideas, be open to new ideas, take risks and use UWI’s sup­port sys­tems.

Founder of the the Per­for­mance Lab Adam Mon­sterin spoke about the in­for­mal econ­o­my, high­light­ing its scale, re­silience, and im­por­tance to Trinidad and To­ba­go’s wider busi­ness land­scape.

He em­pha­sised that many en­tre­pre­neurs be­gin in­for­mal­ly and with the right sup­port sys­tems, men­tor­ship and pol­i­cy frame­works, these small in­for­mal ven­tures can tran­si­tion in­to sus­tain­able, struc­tured busi­ness­es that con­tribute mean­ing­ful­ly to na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.

UWI en­tre­pre­neur­ship

One of the most im­por­tant themes that arose from GEW 2025 was that it is­sued a call to stu­dents and peo­ple in the coun­try as a whole to study en­tre­pre­neur­ship. The Fac­ul­ty of Food and Agri­cul­ture of­fers both a ma­jor and mi­nor in En­tre­pre­neur­ship.

UWI lec­tur­er in En­tre­pre­neur­ship and lead co­or­di­na­tor for GEW 2025, Dr Priscil­la Ba­haw, told the au­di­ence at the event that UWI’s job is not just to teach en­tre­pre­neur­ship, but al­so to cre­ate a cul­ture of en­tre­pre­neur­ship that is based on in­no­va­tion, sus­tain­abil­i­ty and re­gion­al rel­e­vance.

She said there was a strong call to ac­tion that re­mind­ed every­one that it takes a whole ecosys­tem to raise and sup­port an en­tre­pre­neur, just like it takes a vil­lage to raise a child.

“In­no­va­tors who want to suc­ceed can’t do it alone; they need men­tors, poli­cies that sup­port them, ac­cess to re­sources, net­works where they can work to­geth­er and ad­vice from ex­pe­ri­enced lead­ers T&T can on­ly cre­ate a nur­tur­ing en­vi­ron­ment that helps young en­tre­pre­neurs grow, come up with new ideas, and start busi­ness­es that make the coun­try and the Caribbean stronger if every­one works to­geth­er.”

She al­so de­scribed the event as a suc­cess.

“The au­di­ence was able to ask di­rect ques­tions about in­no­va­tion path­ways, en­tre­pre­neur­ship ed­u­ca­tion and chances for young founders dur­ing the dis­cus­sion. Many of them gave each oth­er their con­tact in­for­ma­tion, of­fered to men­tor, and came up with ideas for work­ing to­geth­er. There was a strong net­work­ing at­mos­phere, with stu­dents talk­ing di­rect­ly to busi­ness lead­ers, pol­i­cy­mak­ers, and aca­d­e­mics.”