Fu­ture tech in­no­va­tors from the Caribbean, the USA and the UK were cel­e­brat­ed at the close of a unique sum­mer camp ex­pe­ri­ence host­ed by Bright­Path Foun­da­tion in Port of Spain, Trinidad.

Bright­Path Foun­da­tion, a Trinidad-based non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion, host­ed its first three-week TT.Tech­Camp last month, and closed the event with a for­mal cer­e­mo­ny at the Court­yard Mar­riott, Port-of-Spain on Ju­ly 31. Bright­Path Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor, Bevil Wood­ing, de­scribed his or­gan­i­sa­tion's tech ed­u­ca­tion ini­tia­tives as "com­bin­ing tech­nol­o­gy im­mer­sion with fun-filled cre­ative ac­tiv­i­ty, wrapped in­to a val­ues-based learn­ing ex­pe­ri­ence that we be­lieve can ben­e­fit at­ten­dees for life".

Camp di­rec­tor, Nigel Ed­wards ex­plained that de­mand for the Tech­Camp ex­ceed­ed ca­pac­i­ty with­in hours of be­ing an­nounced.

"We were to­tal­ly over­sub­scribed. We've had ex­pres­sions of in­ter­est in the event from around the re­gion and as far away as the US, UK and Africa."

Some Tech­Camp ses­sions were we­b­cast live via the In­ter­net for over­seas par­tic­i­pants.

"This is con­fir­ma­tion of the val­ue of pro­grams like these that pro­vide our youth with the skills need­ed to move from be­ing tech­nol­o­gy con­sumers to be­ing tech­nol­o­gy pro­duc­ers," Ed­wards said.

The theme of the camp, "Iden­ti­ty Pow­er­ing Tech­nol­o­gy", was on full dis­play as par­tic­i­pants show­cased web and mo­bile app projects to pro­mote lo­cal con­tent.

Groups of young­sters rang­ing in age from 10 to 15 years pre­sent­ed ideas for lo­cal and Caribbean dis­as­ter pre­pared­ness, hos­pi­tal­i­ty, news, lo­cal cui­sine and ed­u­ca­tion­al con­tent.

Kevin Khelawan, COO at lo­cal soft­ware firm Teleios Sys­tems, one of the spon­sors of the event, was pleased with the out­come. He said, "We were re­al­ly quite hap­py to be a part of bring­ing the pi­o­neer­ing in­ter­na­tion­al work of Bright­Path Foun­da­tion back home, where it all be­gan."

Teleios staff vol­un­teered to fa­cil­i­tate ses­sions on soft­ware de­vel­op­ment and tech­nol­o­gy in­no­va­tion.

"To col­lab­o­rate with the Bright­Path team and share our own ex­pe­ri­ence in pro­gram­ming and tech­nol­o­gy in­no­va­tion with the youth has been a great priv­i­lege for our soft­ware de­vel­op­ers," Khelawan added.

Rhea Yaw Ching, an ex­ec­u­tive at spon­sor Colum­bus Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, a re­gion­al telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions provider, said, "It was re­al­ly re­fresh­ing to see such a strong em­pha­sis be­ing placed on this im­por­tant is­sue, and to such a young au­di­ence," adding, "This Bright­Path Tech­Camp serves a time­ly re­minder that the Caribbean re­mains ca­pa­ble of cre­at­ing lo­cal con­tent that can have glob­al ap­peal."

Wood­ing's Foun­da­tion has al­ready staged sim­i­lar events in Caribbean, in­clud­ing An­tigua, St. Kitts and Grena­da, the USA, the UK and as far away as Fi­ji in the Pa­cif­ic. His vi­sion ex­tends be­yond tech­ni­cal train­ing and con­tent de­vel­op­ment. The Bright­Path founder has been a strong ad­vo­cate for tech­nol­o­gy-en­abled de­vel­op­ment glob­al­ly.

"Tech­nol­o­gy is sup­posed to be a great en­abler, but en­abling does not take place in a vac­u­um. Tech­nol­o­gy pro­grams and poli­cies work best when the peo­ple be­hind them have a deep ap­pre­ci­a­tion of their so­cial con­text. This is why we em­pha­sise the val­ues that must lie be­hind how tech­nol­o­gy is used. In­no­va­tion, cre­ativ­i­ty and en­tre­pre­neur­ship have to be guid­ed by ideals such as col­lab­o­ra­tion, in­tegri­ty and civic du­ty if tech­nol­o­gy is to pos­i­tive­ly im­pact us as a so­ci­ety."