Climate change entrepreneurs to benefit from start-up bootcamp

The Caribbean Climate Innovation Centre (CCIC), in collaboration with the Caribbean Centre of Excellence for Sustainable livelihoods (CoESL) and the Cave Hill School of Business will soon be hosting a green technology idea generation session and bootcamp in Barbados.

 

This intense 54-hour event focuses on identifying and supporting Caribbean entrepreneurs and new ventures which are developing locally appropriate solutions towards climate change mitigation and adaptation.

 

Opportunity for further development is provided to local entrepreneurs and start-up businesses (from pre-seed, early stage start-ups to growth stage) which are involved in clean technology solutions in the focus areas of renewable energy, energy efficiency, water/waste management; sustainable agriculture/agribusiness and resource use efficiency. The idea generation session and bootcamp will be held at the Cave Hill School of business, October 14-16th, 2016.

 

The objective of the CCIC is to identify, build capacity and provide a supportive ecosystem for a pipeline of clean technology entrepreneurs in the Region. Already over 168 entrepreneurs are already trained in this business knowledge.

 

This three day event will bring together climate related experts to drive discussions on the challenges of climate change to inspire more participants to generate business ideas, as climate change-related solutions.

 

Participants will be exposed to the rudiments of developing a team and provided with mentorship from business & cleantech experts to improve their business concepts.

 

At the end of the event, each team will pitch their ideas to a panel of judges who will select the top three start-ups. The first place winner will receive an award of US$1 000, while the second and third place winners will receive US$500 and US$250 respectively from the CCIC.

 

The centre’s regional hubs will also be provided training at the bootcamps to better equip them with the know-how to conduct such CCIC programmes in their respective countries. The CoESL is the CCIC’s Barbados hub.

 

The Caribbean GreenTech bootcamp Island-hop series will continue to Belize and Dominica, throughout November 2016. Interested persons may visit CCIC’s website caribbeancic.org/bootcamp and social media pages for updates.

 

The CCIC is a consortium comprising the Caribbean Industrial Research Institute (CARIRI) in Trinidad and Tobago and the Scientific Research Council (SRC) in Jamaica. The CCIC is one of three pillars of infoDev’s Entrepreneurship Programme for Innovation in the Caribbean (EPIC), a seven-year programme funded by the Government of Canada through the World Bank.