CHILL MAGAZINE

 

The Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies unveiled a new seedling in September 2008 with the potential to dramatically alter the entrepreneurial landscape of Barbados and the wider Caribbean, once students consume its developing fruit.

 

Titled SEED, an acronym for Student Entrepreneurial Empowerment Development project, it was established to provide “participants with the tools to become empowered as students, graduates and Caribbean people to reach their full potential and make a difference in the world”.

 

Through practical, hands-on activities that will include seminars, workshops, individual consultations, business plan support, opportunities to network with other young entrepreneurs, persons utilising the facilities of SEED will be assisted in conceptualising, starting and growing their own businesses.

 

In fact, Pro-vice Chancellor of UWI and Principal of the Cave Hill Campus, Sir Hilary Beckles, while welcoming guests to the official launch at the 3Ws Pavilion noted that vibrant entrepreneurship had the potential to add significant value to Caribbean economies.

 

“We are aware that our graduates increasingly must look to themselves, to their own inner resources, to create their own future,” Sir Hilary said. “We recognise that the economy (as currently constituted) can absorb only so many of our graduates…

Self Reliance

“... we would ideally prefer to see many of our graduates entering into the entrepreneurial process to participate in the expansion of the innovation necessary to drive private sector development. We would like to see many more of them moving from student to graduate, to entrepreneur. We would like to see more of them embrace the philosophy of self-reliance, establish their own enterprises, create jobs for themselves, their families and for their friends, and build within their communities a culture of entrepreneurship...”

 

Stressing that SEED was established with this aim, the principal added: “We intend to engage our students, while they are here with us, in a series of workshops and seminars to enable them … to acquire the skills to establish their own businesses, … to read the markets, to … engage the banks and lending institutions, to establish their own portfolios, to build and analyse equity systems so they can be self reliant and self employed.”

 

Cave Hill, he added, had embarked on a path to revolutionise higher education and create at least one graduate in every household, in the process contributing to the alleviation of poverty through selfemployment. He expects that this process will lead to successful graduates giving back handsomely to the university.

 

Offering strong support to the SEED concept, Minister of State in the Ministry of Finance, Senator Darcy Boyce, in delivering the feature address, said: “Stimulating entrepreneurship is a critical dimension in the development of business and industry. Our education system therefore has a role to play in fashioning behaviours which promote the capability to be creative.”

 

Making Dreams a reality

Earlier the minister told guest that institutions such as UWI “must think of ways to make dreams and visions a reality”.

“There must be collaboration between our many different institutions to pave the way for those with the fighting qualities to venture forth and create a new way of doing things. This collaboration must not be limited to Government and the banks or venture capital organisations. It must also include our major firms and leading citizens as mentors and supporters of good ideas.”

 

SEED chair, Dr. Justin Robinson, admonished stakeholders to assist the project through mentoring, the facilitation of internships and projects to work on.

 

“So I invite you to join us to really help produce a new generation of graduates who are empowered to take the Caribbean to a new level of socio-economic development,” he added.

 

Pledging their support to the initiatives of SEED were two leading local Caribbean companies, Scotia Bank, which was represented by its Assistant General Manager for Business Support in the Eastern Caribbean, Skip Bates, and AA Altman Real Estates, represented by Managing Director Paul Altman.

 

Bates revealed that the bank had already signed a Memorandum of Understanding to govern its association with SEED, and had also pledged to provide more than $1 million over the next five years.

 

Banking on SEED

“[SEED] represents an excellent fit with Scotia Bank’s commitment to, and interest in, seeing the development of a highly qualified and competent entrepreneurial class in Barbados and across the region, as Cave Hill has become the campus of choice for students from the Eastern Caribbean,” Bates added.

 

Speaking on the importance of entrepreneurship to an economy, Altman contrasted the uncertainty of many enterprises today as a direct result of the “Wall Street meltdown”, to the ability of many entrepreneurs to determine their own fate.

 

“Controlling one’s own destiny provides a real sense of stability,” he added. “True entrepreneurs are those who have a vision, who are innovators, who have originality and a sense of daring…”

 

Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office, Senator Maxine McClean, who as an official at Cave Hill prior to her current post did much of the groundwork for the establishment of SEED, explained that the idea for the studentsupport initiative came from campus principal Sir Hilary.

 

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