Sen. Maxine McClean was among the featured chats for the night, I asked what happened to fast-tracking Entrepreneurs and she gave a long winded answer; but the simple reality is if in Hong Kong or Singapore you can create a business in 3 hours, yet in Barbados after 3 months you are lucky to have a business after the red tape & hoops you’re expected to endure…
CBC TV 8 now features “Break Point,” a 12 part reality TV series each Wednesday – its goal to empower Caribbean businesses to take on European markets and introduces them to alternative funding sources such as private investors in the form of Venture Capitalists and Angel Investors from Europe.
Executive Director Pamela Coke-Hamilton outlined how from a list of approximately 60 applicants, 30 firms were shortlisted based on evaluation criteria that spoke to demand, innovation, brand strength, Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) application, speed to market, and management strength. These firms then went through Break Point preparatory sessions in Barbados with coaches/mentors, mostly affiliated with the UWI Cave Hill School of Business.
They were provided with tools to improve their presentation skills and received feedback on how to enhance their business pitches and presentations.
Contestant John Francis from St Kitts was scheduled to speak in the middle and not at the end of the launch, but his flight was delayed… He flew LIAT – who was a sponsor of the series!
The Break Point series follows the journey of these 30 firms from their initial preparatory sessions at the UWI Cave Hill School of Business, to their regional pitches, the subsequent selection process that followed, all the way to the 12 firms’ final pitches in London.
This was one of the judges who amazingly gave away the end of the series to the audience at the launch held in Cave Hill recently, did no one vet his speech before he blurted it? The 30 Candidates that made it to Round 2 came from 10 different CARIFORUM countries and represented a diverse range of sectors and industries, such as Agro-Processing, Light Manufacturing, Creative Industries, Fashion and Garment, Professional services, and Specialized Tourism.
Break Point is a Caribbean Export initiative under and 10th European Development Fund’s (EDF) Regional Private Sector Development Programme, in partnership with the United Kingdom Department for International Development (DFID) and the United Kingdom Trade and Investment (UKTI).
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