The In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day (IWD) Caribbean Tech Sum­mit 2022, host­ed by Google Women Tech­mak­ers, Google De­vel­op­er Groups and Women in Tech Caribbean, took place mere weeks ago and WE had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to con­verse with the or­ga­niz­ing com­mit­tee, and cap­ture the ‘true band­width’ of this 6-day Sum­mit. Speak­ers and part­ners hailed from 10 Caribbean coun­tries in­clud­ing Ja­maica, Trinidad and To­ba­go, Guyana, Bar­ba­dos, St. Vin­cent and the Grenadines, Guade­loupe, the Ba­hamas, Suri­name, Brazil and Haiti.

Maria O’Brien, lead or­ga­niz­er, gave her take on this year’s sum­mit. “It was hum­bling to ob­serve as our speak­ers tru­ly honed in on the theme of #Pro­gress­Not­Per­fec­tion, each bring­ing to the ta­ble in­cred­i­ble au­then­tic­i­ty and can­dour, as they shared per­son­al strug­gles as lead­ers, and trans­for­ma­tion­al sto­ries of over­com­ing ob­sta­cles, fos­ter­ing pos­si­bil­i­ties, in­no­va­tion and ex­plor­ing their cu­rios­i­ty as they pur­sued their goals.”

Women in Tech Caribbean, found­ing part­ner of the sum­mit, played a crit­i­cal role in the en­gage­ment of Caribbean based women lead­ers and part­ners for this event. Founder and Twit­ter de­vel­op­er In­sid­er, Janique­ka John says, “Our mis­sion is to con­nect the best of our fe­male tech tal­ent across the Caribbean and Caribbean di­as­po­ra to em­pow­er and el­e­vate each oth­er, net­work, share op­por­tu­ni­ties, help each oth­er to de­vel­op our tech­ni­cal skills, and more!”

There were many amaz­ing #Pro­gress­Not­Per­fec­tion Mo­ments from the Sum­mit.

WE are shar­ing just a few to­day:

The Fu­ture is Sol­id

STEAM Pi­o­neer Camille Selvon, An­i­mae Caribe, keynote speak­er of the Sum­mit woke up the au­di­ence as she shared her jour­ney and growth as a tech leader and woman ex­ec­u­tive. She spoke of our rich Caribbean cul­ture and her­itage, not­ing that it was still “steeped in bu­reau­cra­cy and a post-colo­nial past…”

She shared her strug­gles and daunt­ing ob­sta­cles, not­ing how many times she al­most gave up when push­ing An­i­ma­tion as an in­dus­try in our re­gion. She poignant­ly went on to say, “If your roots are pulled out there are many more trees. This move­ment can­not be stopped. As we con­tin­ue to be pi­o­neers un­der­stand that every mo­ment is a gift. Every soul is a gift. Every in­ci­dent is a gift. Good or bad. Find the les­son in all.”

In every life, a lit­tle rain must fall

Ca­ri­na Cock­burn, Ecosys­tem leader and IADB Coun­try rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Trinidad and To­ba­go, led us through her pow­er­ful #Pro­gress­Not­Per­fec­tion sto­ry where she shared many pearls of wis­dom such as - “Nev­er for­get the sim­ple cour­te­sies that make peo­ple feel val­ued and ap­pre­ci­at­ed” She shared her sto­ry of re­turn­ing to work af­ter ma­ter­ni­ty leave, and feel­ing the need to main­tain the ap­pear­ance that noth­ing had changed. She spoke about our harsh in­ner crit­ic and how ac­cep­tance and for­giv­ing our­selves, is a key part of push­ing ahead. “It is im­por­tant to keep mov­ing for­ward, not nec­es­sar­i­ly up­ward.”

Col­lab­o­ra­tion fu­el­ing the Pur­pose Dri­ven Meta­verse

Anya Ay­oung Chee, led us in­to her jour­ney of found­ing Wyld Flwr LLC and how it grew in­to a Caribbean brand that took its place next to DKNY at the world’s first-ever Meta­verse Fash­ion Week. She re­flect­ed how af­ter ini­tial­ly found­ing the com­pa­ny as a fes­ti­val wear brand in 2020, the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic hit, which led to her dis­cov­ery of the po­ten­tial of a new path with aug­ment­ed wear­ables- long be­fore the ex­plo­sion of NFTs and WEB 3.0.

She spoke about spend­ing the last 12 months deep in col­lab­o­ra­tion with oth­er in­no­va­tors who shared her pas­sion, pur­pose and prin­ci­ples. She said, “I do be­lieve that not hold­ing things to my chest is the on­ly rea­son we have got­ten this far, hav­ing trust­ed these part­ners with my vi­sion, and watch­ing it grow in­to a glob­al con­ver­sa­tion.”

Per­sis­tence al­ways pays off

The amaz­ing con­tri­bu­tion and sto­ry from Sowmya Thot­tam­beti from the Ba­hamas left us all in­tro­spect­ing. She shared her ex­pe­ri­ences of her in­tern­ship with glob­al in­dus­try leader Nike. Right af­ter this in­tern­ship, while she hoped for a place­ment, it didn’t hap­pen right away and per­sis­tence, per­se­ver­ance be­came an­oth­er part of her jour­ney. She found oth­er path­ways through en­gage­ment and pitch­ing to de­ci­sion mak­ers – then suc­ceed­ing in se­cur­ing her cur­rent po­si­tion as soft­ware en­gi­neer for one of the biggest brands in the world.

Ad­vice to Tech En­tre­pre­neurs

Aman­da Spann, Head of Com­mu­ni­ty at Tech Beach Re­treat, dove right in­to the work that we face, in build­ing healthy Caribbean tech ecosys­tems. She not­ed that while we could look at oth­er ecosys­tems for in­spi­ra­tion, it is im­por­tant that we de­fine what we want to be for our­selves. She shared her ap­proach of “leav­ing no el­e­ment be­hind” not­ing that it takes all com­po­nents to en­sure a start-up thrives and sus­tains.

When asked what ad­vice she would give to bud­ding en­tre­pre­neurs, she stat­ed the most im­por­tant qual­i­ty for them to de­vel­op is “be­ing coach­able”.

She stat­ed, “There are things that are unique to this re­gion that we should own, that we should cel­e­brate, that we should look at as a blue ocean of op­por­tu­ni­ty.”

What are the next steps?

“The next steps for the IWD Caribbean Tech Sum­mit are to fol­low through with ac­tion for in­creas­ing di­ver­si­ty in the Caribbean Tech Com­mu­ni­ty through the em­pow­er­ment of women and girls, and un­der­rep­re­sent­ed groups with ini­tia­tives that will con­tribute to a more di­verse and in­clu­sive en­vi­ron­ment as well as the pro­mo­tion of in­clu­sive and dis­rup­tive projects that are build­ing ecosys­tems to push the nee­dle for­ward for di­ver­si­ty and rep­re­sen­ta­tion,” shared Maria ‘O Brien.

Sum­mit Part­ners in­clud­ed WE Mag­a­zine - Guardian Me­dia, An­i­mae Caribe, Caribbean Girls Hack, SISU Glob­al Well­ness, Trinidad and To­ba­go An­i­ma­tion Net­work, Gam­ing As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go, CaribeArt, Dig­i­tal Ja­maica, Caribbean In­Tran­sit, Workii, Is­land Sit­ters, Ramdin Con­sul­tan­cy, Drap­er Start­up House Cari­com and De­sign Change.

To learn more about the sum­mit and its on­go­ing ac­tiv­i­ties, please vis­it www.iwdtech­sum­mit.org.