Above: Simeon Moore. Photo courtesty AMCHAM.

AMCHAM T&T successfully completed the first Breakbeatcode Virtual Summer Camp with twenty-three (23) students between the ages 12 and 17 on August 27th, 2022.

Breakbeatcode was first introduced to students in 2021 by AMCHAM T&T through a series of hackathons. It is an initiative that introduces young people in various communities across the globe to learn how to code through beat-making and music creation. The initiative is a 20% time project introduced by Google that empowers its employees to spend one day of their workweek, or 20 percent of their time, on a side project of their choosing.

Due to the overwhelming success of last year’s hackathon, AMCHAM T&T partnered once more with the Breakbeatcode team to bring this initiative to our nation’s youths. Thirty-eight (38) students participated in another hackathon held earlier this year which led to the idea of a virtual camp to provide more extensive learning around coding and music concepts. The goal of the camp is to provide increased opportunities to unlock the talents and skills of our young people and create the next generation of artist engineers, tech entrepreneurs, and business leaders.

“I am very proud of the students who participated in this year’s summer camp,” said Nirad Tewarie, AMCHAM T&T CEO. “It’s also very rewarding to see the continued success of this initiative. Learning to code and having programming skills will expose our young people and give them options to a world of better and more fulfilling opportunities later in life.”

“Empowering our population with new skill sets involving technology will create even greater economic opportunities for our citizens. It will also help our nation to move one step closer to firmly establishing ourselves as the premier Tech Hub in the region – which will have a major impact on reducing inequalities while enhancing social mobility for many persons in our society,” Tewarie said.

The camp was facilitated by Music Producer/Artiste Simeon Moore who is also an ICT Technologist at The Caribbean Industrial Research Institute. Also, accompanying him on this initiative were six (6) assistant coaches from the NGO: Restore a Sense of I Can.

The six-week virtual summer camp offered students in-depth lessons on coding concepts such as “variables,” “functions” and “while loop,” as well as music theory concepts on beats, measures, tempo, repetition, effects etc. Putting this knowledge together, the students worked with their coaches to develop and produce beats for different genres including trap, reggaeton, rock and pop.

Meanwhile, Moore said the Breakbeatcode Virtual Summer Camp was nothing short of excellent and encourage more students to explore coding and music production through the Breakbeatcode programme. “From working with the teams at AMCHAM T&T and Google to interacting with the brilliant students who were excited to learn – it was amazing to experience.”

“As an avid ICT proponent who desires to see Trinidad & Tobago develop more technologically, and also as a music producer that desires to see the local music industry flourish more – this camp was such an encouragement as it facilitated forward movement on both paths by equipping the next generation with coding and music production skills,” Moore said.

Calvin Pinney. Photo courtesy AMCHAM.

Calvin Pinney, a Chrome Enterprise Specialist from Google Cloud who played a major part in bringing Breakbeatcode to Trinidad and Tobago, said the students can now call themselves “Artist Engineers” having learnt how to put the two sets of skills together to produce music. “The cool thing about this program is that now you can officially call yourself an artist engineer,” Pinney said.

“So, I hope we could just continue building upon what we learned today and stay plugged in with the group here. There are some other things that you can learn such as web design development, cloud computing, data analytics, business intelligence, and python, which is a scripting language where you can do so many cool things beyond making beats.”

At the camp’s closing ceremony, Pinney also reminded the students that opportunities are limitless because of technology. “I want you to think about how you can take this a step further. Just use the imagination.” Pinney said. “Some of the skills that you learn today, somebody here today could create the next Google. You know, why can’t it be out of Trinidad Tobago?”

AMCHAM T&T would like to thank the teams from Breakbeatcode, CARIRI and Restore A Sense of I Can for their support for the Virtual Summer Camp and we look forward to hosting future sessions to accommodate more students through the Breakbeatcode initiative. For more information on Breakbeatcode, interested persons can contact Ms Rey-Anne Paynter-Mendez, Tech Community and Project Officer at AMCHAM T&T at rey-annepaynter@amchamtt.com.