Minister of Planning and Development Camille Robinson-Regis says her ministry via its Global Services Promotion Programme (GSPP) is sponsoring ten start-up companies from T&T to obtain a business mentorship opportunity from Silicon Valley executives during a technology conference in Jamaica at the end of November 2018.
Dubbed Tech Beach, this is a premier conference in the Caribbean which has converged leading minds and founders from You Tube, Twitter, Facebook, Four Square and others among the leading tech companies from across the world, a release stated.
The Tech Beach conference is in its third year, and through a call for start-ups to apply, which is currently underway, participants will have the opportunity to receive mentorship from top executives in Pixar Animation Studios, Linked In, Air BnB and Facebook to name a few. The ten start-ups will be selected via a judging process based on online submissions which include a description of their business idea, a video presentation and other details about their start-ups.
The competition was launched on November 17 and 104 applications have been submitted with 45 per cent in the range of 25-34 years old, 15 per cent in the 18-24 year age range, 29 per cent in the 35-44 year old bracket and the rest ranging from 45 to 64 years old. Interestingly, one per cent of participants are in the 12-17 year old category so far. There are applicants in the area of events services, construction, education management, environmental services and more.