Sev­er­al renowned glob­al and re­gion­al lead­ers, in­clud­ing top-notch busi­ness ex­ec­u­tives, en­tre­pre­neurs and aca­d­e­mics, have al­ready con­firmed their par­tic­i­pa­tion as guest speak­ers at the up­com­ing VI­II Amer­i­c­as Com­pet­i­tive­ness Fo­rum (ACF).Key dis­cus­sion top­ics to be cov­ered in­clude in­no­va­tion in ed­u­ca­tion, re­search and ap­pli­ca­tion, en­er­gy com­pet­i­tive­ness and in­no­va­tion and fi­nanc­ing busi­ness in­vest­ment growth.

It is an­tic­i­pat­ed that the en­rich­ing and though-pro­vok­ing di­a­logue will in­spire in­no­v­a­tive pol­i­cy mak­ing, greater pri­vate sec­tor in­vest­ment in re­search and de­vel­op­ment and high­er lev­els of en­tre­pre­neur­ial ac­tiv­i­ty through­out the Hemi­sphere with greater co­he­sion.The VI­II ACF promis­es to be the largest gath­er­ing of in­ter­na­tion­al speak­ers in the Caribbean. Two of the con­firmed speak­ers who will be vis­it­ing T&T be­tween Oc­to­ber 8-10 are Frans Jo­hans­son and Suhas Gopinath.

Jo­hans­son is a founder and for­mer CEO of In­ka.net, and a founder and vice pres­i­dent of Busi­ness De­vel­op­ment for Dola Health Sys­tems.His lat­est book, The Medici Ef­fect, has been hailed by in­no­va­tion-gu­ru Clay Chris­tensen as, "one of the most in­sight­ful books about man­ag­ing in­no­va­tion I have ever read."Jo­hans­son earned an MBA from Har­vard Busi­ness School and a BS from Brown Uni­ver­si­ty.

Gopinath, 27, is the CEO and pres­i­dent of Glob­als Inc, a multi­na­tion­al com­pa­ny that of­fers Web, soft­ware, mo­bile and mul­ti­me­dia ser­vices.Founder of cool­hin­dus­tan.com, Gopinath is al­so an ad­vi­so­ry board mem­ber of IIT Bom­bay En­tre­pre­neur­ship Cell, a brand am­bas­sador of Pe­TA and a youth am­bas­sador of the In­do-Pak Lead­er­ship Pro­gramme at the School of Lead­er­ship, Pak­istan.

He is the re­cip­i­ent of sev­er­al awards in­clud­ing Youngest En­tre­pre­neur; World's Youngest CEO; Ra­jy­ot­sa­va Award, State Gov­ern­ment of Kar­nata­ka, In­dia; Young Achiev­er Award, Eu­ro­pean Par­lia­ment.T&T will be the first Eng­lish speak­ing coun­try to host an Amer­i­c­as Com­pet­i­tive­ness Fo­rum on Oc­to­ber 8-10, 2014 at the Hy­att Re­gency, Port-of-Spain.The theme is The Hu­man Imag­i­na­tion at Work: Dri­ving Com­pet­i­tive­ness, Pow­er­ing Imag­i­na­tion.

The Amer­i­c­as Com­pet­i­tive­ness Fo­rum is the pre­mier medi­um in the west­ern hemi­sphere bring­ing to­geth­er gov­ern­ment, busi­ness lead­ers and aca­d­e­mics to dis­cuss in­no­v­a­tive meth­ods to achieve eco­nom­ic com­pet­i­tive­ness and pro­mote in­no­va­tion in the Caribbean and the Amer­i­c­as.It arose from the recog­ni­tion of the need to pro­mote trade, en­tre­pre­neuri­al­ism, ad­dress im­mi­gra­tion re­forms and high­light the im­por­tance of in­vest­ments in re­search and de­vel­op­ment as a key tool for com­pet­i­tive­ness.

It is al­so meant to ad­dress the fact that the Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean re­gion lags be­hind the rest of the Amer­i­c­as in terms of in­come equal­i­ty and the lev­el of in­vest­ment that oc­curs in re­search and de­vel­op­ment.