Draper Tech Fest empowers local innovators

Innovators in TT's emerging information and communications technology (ICT) industry attended Tech Fest at the Centre of Excellence, Macoya hosted by Draper Start-Up House Caricom on Tuesday.

The highlight of Tech Fest was the Survival of the Pitchest competition, wherein innovators pitched their ideas and judges award the top three with prizes of US$5,000, US$1,500 and US$500.

One attendee, Keita Smith described the event as a local Shark Tank – based on the US reality TV show where entrepreneurs pitch product ideas for investment from billionaires – and was disappointed that he did not know about it before he arrived.

Darnel Francois, founder of Draper Start-Up House Caricom, said Tuesday's Tech Fest was the first of many to come. He hoped to integrate more foreign contributors into his business model.

Francois said, "We want to empower our investor community to understand what venture capital means and to take calculated risks so we can grow the economy, so we can have more remote workers, upskilled, to handle the new economy and the advent of artificial intelligence. We're opening up the borders to foreign direct investment and collaborations from abroad."

Francois said two of the most meaningful partnerships were Rescott, an agricultural firm, and One Caribbean, based in real estate.

He said, "They saw the Draper Start-Up House as an intermediary broker and three of us are in a partnership."

Future partnerships for Draper are likely to include Massy Finance, Unit Trust, Republic Bank, Francois said. Massy Finance, Unipet and TT Ride Share were all sponsors of Tuesday's activities.

Francois added, "We need to grow and collaborate as a Caribbean community, that's why it is Draper Start-Up House Caricom. It's not just about Trinidad, but Caricom as a whole."

On this note, Draper's co-founder had a company LUHU – Let us help you, which has been acquired by a Bahamian company, Kanoopay. It operates similarly to CashApp and will be reintroduced to TT under that brand.

Francois said, "You don't need to invoice, it's direct payment. Same way you can send a WhatsApp message, you can send a payment on CashApp. That's how Kanoopay TT will work."

UnQueue's CEO Agyei Archer was a panellist on financial technology. The panel discussed navigating the fintech regulations in TT.

Archer said UnQueue serves 37,000 people in TT, helping them shop online from small businesses.

"We help customers find businesses. We help businesses set up their online profiles. It's the first thing of its kind in TT. If you're a vendor we help you to create a website and then you're able to generate sales. It costs 6.5 per cent of transactions. Websites are free. It's a business model that works well at scale."

A representative of the Central Bank said, "If your technology solution provides a platform that allows the acceptance, transfer, processing or disbursement and holding of funds on behalf of others, you may need to be regulated by the bank."

Attendee Bekim Rauseo said, "Tech Fest is very innovative. I like the approach of bringing a tech festival with Caribbean carnival into a more constructive space. I'm looking forward to the Pitch Fest."

Rauseo enjoyed the agricultural aspects of the panel discussions. "I like the presentation of Riyadh Mohammed and Rescott, it was the worth of the panel."

Unipet's Akshay Birbal advertised the company's solar power initiatives. Unipet was one of Tech Fest's sponsors.

Birbal said, " Right now we have electric vehicle charging stations in Brentwood and Lady Hailes (Avenue) in San Fernando. We have solar panels at a computer lab in UWI, at our head office and we offer packages for solar installations at people's homes."

Birbal said consultation and site visits are free of charge but could not provide an average cost of installation because it was dependent on several factors including the panel's location and the length of wire. He said the costliest thing was batteries which required changing once every ten years.

Another tech-oriented sponsor, TT Rideshare (TTRS), was also present.

Leerol Colquhoun said, "TTRS is here to ensure all our riders and drivers are verified. We want to ensure everyone gets to where they go safely, especially in the Carnival season."

Colquhoun said TTRS is also looking at alternative methods of payments without cash, credit cards or Linx but could not give an estimated timeframe for its inclusion on the app.

Investors based in Reno, Nevada, Alan Ghafoor and Kevin Petersen of Growth Stack came to help develop innovations in TT.

Ghafoor and Petersen were in TT for the first time for Tech Fest and are likely to stay until Carnival. They hope to create more relationships in TT and help innovators to get their products into US and global markets.

"We want to be a contributing factor for Draper. The vision is we would like to help with making the Caribbean a tech centre – Trinidad in particular."