Above: Dr Wayne Frederick, President of Howard University. Photo courtesy TSTT.
Positioning technology to play a larger role in the country’s economic diversification will be one of the key goals when bmobile hosts its “Connect Technology Conference & Innovation Week” from January 28th – February 1st, 2019.
To make this possible the conference will showcase major international partners and thought leaders in education and technology including Trinidadian, Dr. Wayne Frederick, President Howard University, who will be the Keynote Speaker. The event will also include community-based immersive events and a regional Code Challenge and start up competition to find the Biggest Innovator for 2019.
“Our mission is to give start-up entrepreneurs,SME’s, and enterprises a platform for making T&T an innovation Hub for the region” said Rakesh Goswami EVP Strategic Alliance, Enterprise and Tobago Operations at TSTT.
bmobile Connect Technology Conference and Innovation Week is expanding the scope and scale in 2019 and is taking the show on the road across Trinidad and Tobago and the Caribbean.
“When people look at the tremendous strides a small island like T&T has made through bmobile’s world class data centre, our world class e-tendering software as a service, our world class 4G LTE mobile network and our 5G-ready Wireless Broadband WTTx technology, there is a sense that more needs to be done to make technology, innovation and digital transformation the new normal for business in T&T” said Goswami. He noted that the first bmobile Connect Technology Conference in 2017 was an immense success for bmobile.
“Building on that success, we looked at ways of spreading the benefits around to more businesses, consumers and national community.” Goswami explained that similar to the leading global tech organisations, bmobile was positioning itself to be more proactive in stimulating engagement and action among its stakeholders. “TSTT’s transformation into an agile broadband communications company means we can no longer be content with just being leaders in technology and have to go beyond communication and into the realm of technology and innovation.”
One of the new programs being introduced in bmobile Connect 2019 is the Innovation week. Innovation week is a special collaboration between bmobile and a diverse group of SME entrepreneurs that have applied the use of technology to a variety of economic activities.
These entrepreneurs will be showcasing their projects and opportunities at the community level in various locations throughout Trinidad and Tobago. The Innovation week will include partners in professions including entertainment, software development; event management and marketing .
Through immersive workshops these participants will demonstrate unique ways that technology has enabled them to create new products and services for additional revenue streams. “The lessons and experiences of these partners will help demystify some of the simple and practical ways people can use even basic technology to leapfrog entry barriers for developing small and micro enterprises.”
Another exciting part of the program is a Regional Code challenge in which locals will go head to head with participants from the Caribbean to conceptualise technology-based solutions for current social or economic issues.
“The Code Challenge is for innovators and start-up entrepreneurs who are eager to put their ideas up for consideration. bmobile wants to create a unique space for developing indigenous tech entrepreneurship so the winning team will receive $100,000 and technical support from our strategic partner IBM in our business accelerator program to bring the next great idea to life ” said Goswami.
“We plan to make bmobile Connect Technology and Innovation Week 2019 even bigger than the first event, not just in terms of scale but also in terms of impact. This conference will break down barriers and build digitally disruptive bridges so businesses, from the micro enterprise to the conglomerate, can player a larger role in national digital transformation.”
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