Who says we have to look to Sil­i­con Val­ley in the US as the sole haven of cre­ative start-ups? We sim­ply need to look in our own back­yards. This came across loud and clear at the re­cent Glob­al En­tre­pre­neur­ship Sum­mit (GES) in Sil­i­con Val­ley.

As US Sec­re­tary of State John Ker­ry not­ed, "In our era, every­body here un­der­stands that new ideas can evolve any­where, at any time. And they can have an im­pact any­where. In my trav­els as sec­re­tary, I have been ab­solute­ly amazed by the ground-break­ing de­signs I've seen, by the ideas be­ing brought to life every­where–some­times where you least ex­pect it."

At the an­nu­al Glob­al En­tre­pre­neur­ship Sum­mit, host­ed by Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma, more than 700 en­tre­pre­neurs wit­nessed the pow­er of the Caribbean as Ke­nia Mat­tis of Ja­maica won US$15,000 in the Spark the Fire pitch com­pe­ti­tion for her lit­er­a­cy start-up Lis­ten­Mi.

Mat­tis is one of a growth-ori­ent­ed group of en­tre­pre­neurs who are tak­ing part in the eight-month Women In­no­va­tors in the Caribbean Ac­cel­er­a­tion Pro­gramme (WIN­CAP) in T&T and 11 oth­er Caribbean ter­ri­to­ries. The pro­gramme is par­tial­ly fund­ed by the Gov­ern­ment of Cana­da and the World Bank.

Four­teen oth­er Trin­bag­on­ian en­tre­pre­neurs have com­mit­ted to their busi­ness and per­son­al de­vel­op­ment by par­tic­i­pat­ing in the WIN­CAP. They are:

�2 Danielle Small–The Busi­ness Bou­tique

�2 Es­se­nese Sam­bury–Hair for Di­vas and Caribbean School of Cos­me­tol­ogy

�2 Gillian Bel­lamy–Mara­cas Busi­ness Cen­ter

�2 Ja­nine Mendez Fran­co–The New Cheeze

�2 Laci Joseph–Just Bee You! Beau­ty Prod­ucts

�2 Lavaughn Marin–Marin En­gi­neer­ing Ser­vices Ltd

�2 Leesa Ann Reize–Per­fect Pep­pers

�2 Melis­sa Williams–Cre­ative-roomz Whole­sale Trad­ing

�2 Mweia Elias–Em­pow­er Nu­tri­tion Ltd

�2 Re­bec­ca Cock­burn–RMC Lan­guage Con­sul­tan­cy

�2 Ro­main Hep­burn–L'Im­age Par­faite Clin­ique De Beaute Ltd

�2 Sarah Leza­ma–Lezara Con­sul­tan­cy Ser­vices

�2 Sueann Ram­s­ingh–In­spired Tech­nolo­gies Ltd

�2 Za­kiya Mills-Fran­cois–ZM Im­age Con­sul­tants Ltd.

This group of pow­er­ful en­tre­pre­neurs is be­ing guid­ed by in­foDev-cer­ti­fied AP Fa­cil­i­ta­tors Glen­da Joseph Den­nis, man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of Carif­ic Ltd and Georgina Ter­ry, The Pas­sions to Prof­itabil­i­ty Ex­pert and man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of BPD As­so­ciates Ltd. Glen­da and Georgina are them­selves en­tre­pre­neurs with more than 40 years of com­bined ex­pe­ri­ence so they un­der­stand the jour­ney un­der­tak­en by the WIN­CAP par­tic­i­pants.

The WINC Ac­cel­er­a­tor Pro­gramme in T&T (WIN­CAP TT) sup­ports these growth-ori­ent­ed en­tre­pre­neurs with meth­ods, tools, ac­cess to ap­pro­pri­ate ex­per­tise and men­tor­ing so that they may in­no­vate with­in their busi­ness­es, im­prove their com­pet­i­tive­ness and grow sub­stan­tial­ly. En­gaged in the pro­gramme since March, these en­tre­pre­neurs are al­ready show­ing ev­i­dence of lever­ag­ing net­works, grow­ing their mar­ket share and in­creas­ing their use of tech­nol­o­gy. One re­cent­ly se­cured a deal with Whole Foods in the US.

"When I de­cid­ed to work for my­self, it did not dawn on me that I would al­so be work­ing by my­self for a long pe­ri­od of time...This group, apart from be­ing an in­valu­able re­source of train­ing and ex­per­tise, has al­so af­ford­ed me the op­por­tu­ni­ty to learn from and form friend­ships with women who are like-mind­ed and equal­ly pas­sion­ate about life, busi­ness and the im­pact we want to make in this world.

"I've learned and im­ple­ment­ed so much al­ready in my busi­ness, such as stream­lin­ing my mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy and how to net­work wher­ev­er I go on a dai­ly ba­sis. I look for­ward to greater suc­cess in busi­ness on com­plet­ing the WINC pro­gramme." Laci Joseph, Just Bee You! Beau­ty Prod­ucts.

"The pro­gramme is de­signed to stretch and strength­en the par­tic­i­pants to en­able them to en­joy func­tion­ing out­side of their com­fort zone. The group has set them­selves some stretch­ing goals and they have the pow­er and de­ter­mi­na­tion to achieve this," says Georgina Ter­ry.

WIN­CAP TT is sup­port­ed by a dis­tin­guished cadre of lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al men­tors. "We have re­ceived great sup­port from high­ly suc­cess­ful male and fe­male en­tre­pre­neurs ded­i­cat­ed to men­tor­ing the par­tic­i­pants to achieve ac­cel­er­at­ed and sus­tained growth both per­son­al­ly and for their busi­ness­es," says Glen­da Joseph Den­nis.

The busi­ness­es range from food cater­ing, agro pro­cess­ing, ICT, en­gi­neer­ing, arts and en­ter­tain­ment, beau­ty and cos­me­tol­ogy, cloth­ing and ac­ces­sories, to con­sult­ing, nu­tri­tion, lan­guage and cul­tur­al train­ing, and are lo­cat­ed on both is­lands.