SAN­DRA L BLOOD

Known for his in­no­v­a­tive work, Nevin Roach, of Low­lands, To­ba­go, has of­fi­cial­ly com­plet­ed his Mas­ter’s de­gree in IT Man­age­ment from IU In­ter­na­tion­al Uni­ver­si­ty of Ap­plied Sci­ences, Ger­many.

A proud alum­nus of Bish­op’s High School, To­ba­go, Roach stands as a re­mark­able fig­ure in so­ci­ety, with his trans­for­ma­tive brain­child, PanoGra­ma, tak­ing cen­tre stage.

His vi­sion­ary in­ge­nu­ity emerged dur­ing the height of COVID-19 re­stric­tions in 2020, when he launched the world’s first on­line steel­pan com­pe­ti­tion, PanoGra­ma. The ini­tia­tive of­fered cru­cial sup­port to mu­si­cians-in-need while pro­vid­ing a plat­form to show­case ex­cep­tion­al tal­ent, bring­ing en­ter­tain­ment to au­di­ences world­wide dur­ing a pe­ri­od of fear, frus­tra­tion, and grief.

The re­sound­ing suc­cess of PanoGra­ma cap­tured me­dia at­ten­tion across the Caribbean, high­light­ing Roach’s abil­i­ty to cre­ate pos­i­tive change through in­no­va­tion and the arts.

With over 15 years of ex­pe­ri­ence in the per­form­ing arts, Roach con­tin­ues to in­spire as­pir­ing steel­pan mu­si­cians, leav­ing an in­deli­ble mark on the cul­tur­al land­scape.

He said, “The steel­pan em­bod­ies the shared his­to­ry of the Caribbean and holds the po­ten­tial to ad­dress press­ing so­ci­etal is­sues, par­tic­u­lar­ly among the youth.”

Roach’s col­lab­o­ra­tions span renowned mu­si­cians such as Pro­fes­sor Liam Teague, the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank, Caribbean gov­ern­ment agen­cies, and lead­ing aca­d­e­m­ic in­sti­tu­tions. Most re­cent­ly, he in­tro­duced the steel­pan to an in­ter­na­tion­al au­di­ence in Chi­na as part of a gov­ern­ment-host­ed sem­i­nar.

In recog­ni­tion of his work, an Ex­cel­lence in Steel­pan Award has been es­tab­lished in his name at his al­ma mater. Roach has served on or­ches­tral ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tees for over five years and has held ad­vi­so­ry roles in mul­ti­ple or­gan­i­sa­tions. His ef­forts earned him the 2024 Caribbean Artis­tic Award for his con­tri­bu­tions through PanoGra­ma.

Roach’s ed­u­ca­tion­al jour­ney is equal­ly im­pres­sive. He holds cer­tifi­cates in mu­sic, a Bach­e­lor’s de­gree in Com­put­er Sci­ence, and a Mas­ter’s in IT Man­age­ment, spe­cial­is­ing in da­ta pri­va­cy and re­search­ing the role of tech­nol­o­gy in sports per­for­mance and fan en­gage­ment. His post­grad­u­ate work ex­plored how tools such as vir­tu­al re­al­i­ty, re­ac­tive light sys­tems, and dig­i­tal an­a­lyt­ics can en­hance ath­lete de­vel­op­ment in small is­land con­texts.

Re­gard­ing sports, Roach em­pha­sis­es its dual im­por­tance for phys­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal de­vel­op­ment. A mul­ti-sport ath­lete, he has com­pet­ed in field hock­ey, ta­ble ten­nis, lawn ten­nis, foot­ball, and Seg­way po­lo, ac­cu­mu­lat­ing over ten years as a sports ad­min­is­tra­tor. As pres­i­dent of the Seg­way Po­lo Club of Bar­ba­dos, he led the team to three con­sec­u­tive World Cham­pi­onship ti­tles.

Look­ing ahead, Roach plans to lever­age his tech­no­log­i­cal ex­per­tise to trans­form the steel­pan sec­tor and oth­er com­mu­ni­ty-fo­cused ini­tia­tives.

“I look for­ward to col­lab­o­rat­ing with Pan Trin­ba­go—the world gov­ern­ing body for steel­pan—to ex­plore dig­i­tal so­lu­tions that can em­pow­er mu­si­cians, stream­line op­er­a­tions, and ad­vance the glob­al steel­pan move­ment. I must com­mend the Pres­i­dent of Pan Trin­ba­go, Mrs Bev­er­ley Ram­sey-Moore, and her en­tire ex­ec­u­tive team for their re­mark­able work for the steel­pan com­mu­ni­ty,” he said.

Ed­u­ca­tion as trans­for­ma­tion

Roach em­pha­sis­es that ed­u­ca­tion is more than a de­gree.

“It’s about un­lock­ing new lev­els of your­self—lev­els where dis­ci­pline be­comes sec­ond na­ture, where ideas are clear­er, and where you see more op­por­tu­ni­ties and few­er ob­sta­cles.”

Ear­li­er this year, Roach faced a set­back with a se­ri­ous knee in­jury sus­tained dur­ing sports.

Re­flect­ing on the year, he said: “It was par­tic­u­lar­ly tough, but there were still many pos­i­tives. Proud to share that I’ve earned my Mas­ter’s in IT Man­age­ment from IU In­ter­na­tion­al Uni­ver­si­ty of Ap­plied Sci­ences! I could not have done it with­out the sup­port of my friends, fam­i­ly, so­cial me­dia fam­i­ly, and staff at IU.”

Roach con­tin­ues to demon­strate that in­no­va­tion, cul­ture, and ed­u­ca­tion can in­ter­sect to cre­ate mean­ing­ful im­pact, both in the Caribbean and on the glob­al stage.