Dextina Booker, one of the young entrepreneurs seen in the film shown on Friday. She also spoke to the students present during an interactive session.

Dextina Booker, one of the young entrepreneurs seen in the film shown on Friday. She also spoke to the students present during an interactive session.

Entrepreneurship session held at SJPP

Samuel Jackman Prescod Polytechnic (SJPP) students were given a chance to learn more about entrepreneurship and pursuing this career path on Friday, during the US Embassy of Bridgetown’s session at that school.

It was attended by over 60 students drawn from a cross section of departments. They were shown a 90-minute documentary film, titled “Generation Start-up”, which featured six recent college graduates who moved to Detroit to start their new small businesses. This was followed by an interactive talk with Dextina Booker, one of the young entrepreneurs seen in the film.

James Rodriguez, Public Affairs Officer of the US Embassy of Bridgetown, told The Barbados Advocate that similar sessions were also held in Antigua and Grenada with students there. He further said the initiative is part of a series being conducted by the Embassy.

“One of our goals as an Embassy is to promote entrepreneurship and economic development in the region, and we see the potential that is here. These are bright kids, they just need to be given an opportunity or motivation.

“So I think by watching a film like this, or meeting an entrepreneur from the US, they get the idea that, yeah, it is a big risk that we could take, but at the same time the rewards would be wonderful, and hopefully they would be able to create jobs for other people from their country.”

Booker, who is a mechanical engineer and a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), shared with the media her experience so far as an entrepreneur. She also offered the advice to budding entrepreneurs that “it is okay to be afraid, but don’t let that guide your hand”. She additionally urged them to build their network.

“It doesn’t have to be formula. It can definitely just be a network of friends who are also entrepreneurs – that has helped me. There have been days when I am completely overwhelmed, but I have my little group chat I can text, I can reach out and they are like, ‘yeah, we know that feeling. Just the other day we were talking to an investor’.

“So having people who understand your predicament, it always makes it a little bit easier too, because you don’t have to get over the hump of explaining what you are going through to be understood and then to get advice,” she explained. (MG)

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