JAMAICA - Kingstoon is a two-day animation conference and festival that will together international leaders in the animation industry, international and Jamaican universities, Jamaican animation studios and professionals, and visual arts students and practitioners to animate Jamaican creativity! It will be held on June 20-21, 2013 at theUWI Mona Visitors’ Lodge & Conference Centre.
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Startup Chile Entrepreneurs talking to us at Movistar Innova, the Start-up Chile Incubator/Coworking Space sponsored by Movistar Chile
YES! THERE IS A CARIBBEAN TECH COMMUNITY! THE STARTUP MOVEMENT STARTED YEARS AGO
Remember a couple years ago when we all used to talk amongst ourselves and saying stuff like ” ohh when are we going to get some recognition; when will some of these government and business people just understand and take our ideas seriously; why bother to startup, if we may not have money to scale and finish; where are other crazy people like me and what are they working on in Barbados, Cuba, Dom Rep blah,blah, blah.”
Well my friends, the edges of the very bright spotlight have begun to shine on the Caribbean Tech Community.
Over the past 18months alone there has been a serious surge of community activities – more online and offline community groups being formed; more meetups, conferences, hackathons and competitions. The number of meetups, conferences, apps competition have increased significantly; franchises like Startup Weekend has landed in 5 Caribbean countries – all playing a role in pulling various groups together to connect, collaborate and compete. The words accelerators and incubators have reached buzzword status,especially amongst the newly clued in. More aid agencies like World Bank, IDB, CIDA have taken notice and have moved to understand what’s going on, give money and connections to a couple of projects to both align themselves with and bring some additional attention.
We’re also seeing talent scouts from Trinidad and the USA going to Jamaica, Dominican Republic to hire developers and business heads…companies like Medullan, Google, Facebook, Linked in have scooped up Caribbean Talent and yes you read that correctly. ( If you are interested in being hired, email me ingrid@connectimass.com)
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TRINIDAD -Startup Weekend T&T is only one week away, and the organizing team is excited, our sponsors are excited and from all the buzz we’re hearing from you, we bet you’re excited too. Already 90 attendees confirmed.
Startup Weekends
Startup Weekends are 54-hour events designed to provide superior experiential education for technical and non-technical entrepreneurs. The weekend events are centered on action, innovation, and education. Beginning with Friday night pitches and continuing through testing, business model development, and basic prototype creation, Startup Weekends culminate in Sunday night demos to a panel of potential investors and local entrepreneurs. Participants are challenged with building functional startups during the event and are able to collaborate with like-minded individuals outside of their daily networks.
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JAMAICA – The Jamaican Government is pumping an estimated US$20 million in the development of the information communication technology sector, Phillip Paulwell, science, technology, energy and mining minister, has said.
“Jamaica is on a growth trajectory once more. We are seeing expansion taking place, especially in Montego Bay, and we want to facilitate and encourage that,” he said, while touring several call centres on the weekend.
“The minister of finance will again be allowing another US$20 million funding for the creation of office space and we got a commitment from Factories Corporation of Jamaica for the construction of 60,000 square feet of space,” said Paulwell. More
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Rival telecoms providers Columbus Networks and Cable & Wireless Communications (CWC) yesterday announced the formation of a joint venture to provide expanded wholesale bandwidth capacity to companies in the Caribbean and Americas. The joint venture, CNL-CWC Networks Inc, is worth US$412 million in combined assets.
In addition, CWC Wholesale Solutions, a subsidiary of Cable & Wireless Communications, has entered into a separate services agreement under which Columbus Networks will provide CWC Wholesale Solutions certain operation and monitoring services, according to a release. The joint venture, launched Monday, will initially provide joint sales and marketing services to business and telecoms clients of CWC and Columbus. More
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A post by the Trinidad and Tobago Startup Weekend team on the need for initiatives in the Caribbean to better harness ICT, and how Startup Weekend Trinidad and Tobago can contribute to that goal.
The existence of a networked economy in which information, products and services are solicited, shared, accessed and re-purposed without traditional limitations, has not only introduced new rules of play and risk-taking in the competitiveness landscape, but also revealed unanticipated and unfamiliar markets. Indeed information and communications technologies present several opportunities for achieving competitive advantage. Governments and leaders alike recognize that in addition to being critical spillovers to every sector, the ability to effectively harness ICTs will improve their overall competitiveness rankings. Yet the Caribbean region continues to be characterized by a delay in the adoption and effective use of ICT amidst the structural upgrades that have occurred.
The outlook for a vibrant, competitive Caribbean ICT sector depends in part on the extent to which the region is able to build and sustain a diverse set of competencies, as well as a keen culture of agility and innovation, at all levels in the value chain. Startup Weekend Trinidad and Tobago is a timely addition to a suite of initiatives that have emerged around the Caribbean and elsewhere to stimulate purpose-driven innovation outside of formal educational programmes. more
REMEMBER YOU CAN Get discounted tickets for Trinidad Startup Weekend with the SiliconCaribe promo code
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Photo credit: Crackberry.com
BlackBerry has announced that it’s bringing its BBM chat platform to multiple platforms and devices this summer, including iOS and Android.
This move has been rumored for, literally, years, yet the announcement still seemed to take the audience by surprise. BBM will come to iOS 6 devices and will work on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and higher. The app will be free and bring cross-platform messaging between BlackBerry, iOS and Android users.
BBM has 60 million active monthly users — certainly nothing to sneeze at — but in the years since it reigned supreme, the messaging space has drastically changed. Apple’s BBM copycat service iMessage boasts over 140 million users. Other services, including MessageMe, GroupMe and Facebook Messenger boast equally large and growing users bases. More
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Local online start-ups want the Bank of Jamaica (BOJ) to move with alacrity and implement mobile money in Jamaica, arguing that weak regulation and heavy bureaucracy have continued to hinder the viability of their businesses.
The appeal came as deputy governor of the BOJ, Livingston Morrison addressed a group of entrepreneurs about regulating mobile remittances, and even as one participant revealed that he had transferred funds even as the central bank official discussed the issue.
“Whilst you spoke I transferred funds using PayPal,” the participant told Morrison while looking at his mobile phone, in reference to transactions made through the global e-commerce business which allows payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet.
“Did I do anything illegal?” he asked. More
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#kgnbeta
It was that kind of Kingston BETA d on Thursday April 25th. It was the first for the year, we had the heady mix of a guest speaker, a panel discussion and startup pitches that created a wicked vibe at the event and online. We had a guest speaker talking about a hot button topic – Mr Livingstone Morrison- Deputy Governor, Bank of Jamaica who spoke about Mobile Money and the Opportunities for Entrepreneurs and the Q & A section was hot with information and no holds barred revelations and suggestions.
Then We had a 4 person panel of entrepreneurs and developers – Lloyd Laing- Founder JL Mobile Gordon SWaby – Founder, Edufocal.com, Khary SHarpe – Founder, Bakari Digital, Wayne Jones Jr – Founder, Hybrid Tech talking about STARTUP CITY: Kingston- How to make the city a hub for tech entrepreneurship & development. This was engaging and challenging to to the business and government officials who were in attendance.
We had 3 teams pitch their tech ideas and a full house 130 attendees. All at the headquarters of our gold sponsor JAMPRO-Jamaica’s Trade and Investment Agency. Our other Gold Sponsor was Jamaica Gleaner/DIGJamaica and our Silver Sponsor was My Virtual Offices.
But here are links to get a full recap of the event.
1. The Teams who Pitch their Tech Ideas at Kingston BETA April 2013 Edition
2. Kingston BETA April 25th, 2103 By the Numbers.
3. Kingston BETA featured in the May/June issue of Caribbean BEAT magazine
4. How Was Kingston BETA April Edition ? Let a few of the selected Tweets Tell the Story
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Thanks for Georgia Popplewell, Kingston BETA tech event series staged by our parent organisation ConnectiMass got featured in the May/June issue of Caribbean BEAT – The Inflight magazine of Caribbean Airlines.
“Years before she launched Kingston Beta, Jamaican tech entrepreneur Ingrid Riley started hearing about techies holding these things called “meetups” in places like New York City and Silicon Valley. “When I went abroad,” Riley says. “I attended one or two, and realised it was basically a regular meeting for people in the industry, whether they’re designers, developers, entrepreneurs, or investors. It’s about being in the same space and getting to know each other,” she adds, “connecting people who have ideas with people who have already done things and people who have money. It’s about developing a community of like-minded people who believe they can be successful in a digital space.”
So in 2007, on the urging of Riley and her company ConnectiMass, a handful of Jamaican techies congregated in the parking lot of Suzie’s Bakery and Coffee Bar in Kingston’s Southdale Plaza, and began laying the foundation for a similar community in the Caribbean region. Kingston Beta was born.” More
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Image credit: melroseumc
BETA HUB Newsletter is a free monthly email of News, Opportunities and Events for the Caribbean Tech Industry. It is a hub of information on upcoming Meetups, Opportunities, Workshops, Classes, Competitions and Conferences, Deals and more for the aspiring or current Caribbean tech entrepreneur, developer, designer, investor, student, tech enthusiast or advocate. We already have over 2,000 individuals from the Caribbean and Diaspora on the list.
It keeps you on the pulse of the people and events that are making Entrepreneurship & Innovation happen in the Caribbean Tech Startup Scene. Then Join the BETA HUB Community.
The BETA HUB Newsletter is published by ConnectiMass The Tech Entrepreneurship Foundation that’s the parent of this blog and which stages events such as Kingston BETA, Caribbean BETA, Beta Bootcamps, Startup Weekend Jamaica. Sign up
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