Six Caribbean na­tion­als were recog­nised for their con­tri­bu­tion to ad­vanc­ing tech­nol­o­gy in­no­va­tion in the re­gion at the launch of the Bright­Path Foun­da­tion Tech­Link ini­tia­tive in Grena­da.

Bright­Path, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with its cor­po­rate part­ner Colum­bus Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, pre­sent­ed 2013 Tech­Link Caribbean In­no­va­tors Awards in five cat­e­gories to In­grid Ri­ley of Ja­maica, Ner­is­sa Gold­en of Montser­rat, Deanne Scott and Ted­dy Fred­er­ick of Grena­da, Ju­ma Ban­nis­ter of Trinidad and To­ba­go, and Stephen Lee, a Ja­maican-born US na­tion­al.

The Tech­Link Tech Com­mu­ni­ty Ser­vice Award, which recog­nis­es in­di­vid­u­als and or­gan­i­sa­tions mak­ing a sig­nif­i­cant im­pact at a com­mu­ni­ty lev­el in tech­nol­o­gy ad­vo­ca­cy, ed­u­ca­tion, pub­lic aware­ness and in­no­v­a­tive so­lu­tion im­ple­men­ta­tion, was pre­sent­ed to Gold­en for Out­stand­ing Con­tri­bu­tion to Caribbean Sto­ry­telling and En­cour­ag­ing the Par­tic­i­pa­tion of Women in ICT, through her www.tru­ly­caribbean.net web por­tal and en­tre­pre­neur­ship events.

"It feels good to be ho­n­oured for some­thing that just be­came a way of life," Gold­en told the Guardian.

"I start­ed with just do­ing this week­ly let­ter about be­ing a moth­er and just shar­ing what I was learn­ing in my own process. I came on­line be­cause there wasn't con­tent about be­ing a Caribbean moth­er or be­ing an en­tre­pre­neur. That's how it start­ed. Then it be­came a ve­hi­cle to pro­mote what I was do­ing and con­nect with peo­ple whom, un­der nor­mal cir­cum­stances, I would nev­er meet. It was al­low­ing me to cre­ate a busi­ness out of the ideas in my head. Now I recog­nise that we do need more peo­ple cre­at­ing our own con­tent and telling our own sto­ries."

Gold­en just self-pub­lished her third book, an il­lus­trat­ed chil­dren's book ti­tled Is­land Days.

Ja­maica-born Stephen Lee, CEO of Flori­da-based IT con­sult­ing and ser­vices provider ArkiTechs Inc, got the Tech­Link Tech Di­as­po­ra Ser­vice Award for his out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tion to tech­nol­o­gy train­ing and Caribbean mo­bile app de­vel­op­ment.

Lee is a found­ing mem­ber of the Caribbean Net­work Op­er­a­tors (CaribNOG) and serves as a Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ad­vi­sor to the Caribbean Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Union (CTU). He has al­so de­vel­oped a suite of mo­bile apps to pro­mote lo­cal con­tent and cul­ture.

Ri­ley re­ceived the Tech­Link Game Chang­er's Award for So­cial En­tre­pre­neur­ship and her con­tri­bu­tion to trans­form­ing the re­gion's ap­proach to tech busi­ness star­tups. The founder of Con­nec­ti­mass, a non-prof­it which teach­es tech en­tre­pre­neur­ship and in­no­va­tion, called the award time­ly and ex­pressed her ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the recog­ni­tion.

"We are about to launch Start-up Caribe which is a project to seek out and ac­cel­er­ate the work of 100 Caribbean start-ups and take them to the world over the next four years. We are very ho­n­oured to re­ceive this award," Ri­ley said.

Ju­ma Ban­nis­ter of Trinidad re­ceived the Tech­Link Dig­i­tal Con­tent Award, which recog­nis­es in­di­vid­u­als and or­gan­i­sa­tions that are mak­ing a sig­nif­i­cant to ed­u­ca­tion and com­mu­ni­ty mo­bil­i­sa­tion in the area of lo­cal con­tent de­vel­op­ment and preser­va­tion. He was recog­nised for his con­tri­bu­tions in the area of dig­i­tal pho­tog­ra­phy train­ing through his El­e­vate Caribbean ini­tia­tive.

Two Grena­di­ans were giv­en spe­cial Tech­Link Lo­cal In­no­va­tor's Award which recog­nis­es in­di­vid­u­als show­ing promise or who are adopt­ing an in­no­v­a­tive ap­proach to de­vel­op­ing tech­nol­o­gy so­lu­tions that meet lo­cal needs and cre­ate glob­al op­por­tu­ni­ties. Deanne Scott was recog­nised for Grass­roots In­no­va­tion and her con­tri­bu­tion to e-Health and pub­lic aware­ness. Ted­dy Fred­er­ick was award­ed was for his con­tri­bu­tion to pro­mot­ing lo­cal con­tent cre­ation through pho­tog­ra­phy.

"The Tech­Link Caribbean Tech In­no­va­tion Awards cel­e­brate the many hard-work­ing, and of­ten un­her­ald­ed, pi­o­neers who are ad­vanc­ing the tech sec­tor in the re­gion. We be­lieve their sto­ries and their achieve­ments can serve as a pow­er­ful in­spi­ra­tion to oth­ers in the re­gion," ex­plained Bright­Path Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor Bevil Wood­ing dur­ing the launch.

Rhea Yaw Ching, cor­po­rate vice-pres­i­dent of sales and mar­ket­ing at Colum­bus, said that sup­port­ing the in­no­v­a­tive use of tech­nol­o­gy in the Caribbean has al­ways been pri­or­i­ty for Colum­bus.

"Af­ford­able high-speed, In­ter­net ac­cess is be­com­ing a re­al­i­ty across the re­gion. Grena­da, for ex­am­ple, is now part of an elite group of on­ly five coun­tries in the Caribbean where Colum­bus of­fers 100Mb In­ter­net ser­vice to the home. How­ev­er, more has to be done to en­cour­age the cre­ation of Caribbean dig­i­tal con­tent. Bright­Path is cer­tain­ly do­ing its part."

As part of a wider Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing, Colum­bus and Bright­Path are rolling out the Tech­Link ini­tia­tive through­out the Caribbean fol­low­ing the Grena­da launch.

Head of Colum­bus Grena­da Gail Pur­cell said that even though Tech­Link is a long-term ini­tia­tive, it is al­ready a proven suc­cess in Grena­da.

"The hun­dred plus young per­sons and small busi­ness en­tre­pre­neurs who par­tic­i­pat­ed in to­day's work­shops are the pi­o­neers of a move­ment that is in­tend­ed to span the en­tire re­gion, and is part of Colum­bus' wider com­mit­ment to in­vest­ing in de­vel­op­ment of the com­mu­ni­ties it serves."

"While Colum­bus pro­vides a ro­bust net­work to cus­tomers with speeds of 10 to 100 Mbps to the home peo­ple need to un­der­stand and tap in­to the true po­ten­tial of a re­li­able broad­band con­nec­tiv­i­ty in or­der to max­i­mize it us­age in our dai­ly lives. Tech­Link pro­vides that op­por­tu­ni­ty" Pur­cell added.