Jamaica: Young inventors to be nurtured

(Caribbean360) – A new high school incubator programme launched recently by the lead investment promotion agency in Jamaica is hoping to encourage students to come up with the “greatest invention since sliced bread”.

‘i3: Innovation, Ideas, Ingenuity’ was launched by the Jamaica Promotions Corporation (JAMPRO) Business Lab at its offices in St Andrew, with the call for students who think they might be “the next Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Thomas Edison or Alexander Graham Bell” to “step up to the plate and wow the world with probably one of the greatest inventions to come out of Jamaica”.

The new programme is a competition inviting third and fourth-form, high-school students all across Jamaica to formulate and submit their visions for the next innovative product or service in Jamaica.

Students have been invited to submit entries in the categories of mobile technology, food and beverage, fashion/accessories, personal and student convenience, education, energy conservation, entertainment, and hair and cosmetics.

The competition forms part of The Business Lab’s mandate of promoting and fostering entrepreneurship in Jamaicans and was conceptualized to stimulate the formulation and encouragement of innovative thinking in young Jamaicans.

“We have always known that Jamaicans are some of the most inventive and entrepreneurial people in the world and we now wish to showcase that,” said Kimala Bennett, managing director of The Business Lab.

The competition is slated to run until March 2012, where the finalists will showcase their ideas and basic business plans to a panel of judges and the wider Jamaica.