Three Caribbean Innovators win International Mobile Competition

September 29th, 2010 

ST AUGUSTINE, Trinidad And Tobago – Two Trinidad and Tobago nationals and one Jamaican have won an international competition to promote mobile technology innovation.

Jamaican Ramone Graham and Trinidad and Tobago nationals Salys Sultan and Jesse Bartoo copped the top prizes in Phase One of the “Caribbean Innovators Challenge: Mobile Applications for Development” competition, a contest funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC). IDRC is a Canadian Crown corporation that works with researchers from the developing world in their search for the means to build healthier, more equitable, and more prosperous societies.

Phase One participants were required to propose a needs-based, mobile application for an identified community of low income earners in the Caribbean, and indicate how the activities or outputs of the competition would be used in the teaching or research programme at the competitor’s tertiary level institute.

Graham, Sultan and Bartoo received an award of US$3,000 each, to be used towards the development and deployment of their proposed mobile application for demonstrative purposes. They have each been assigned a mentor who will provide guidance during the Competition’s six-month Phase Two, during which they will develop and deploy, for demonstration their mobile applications. Judging criteria will include relevance, potential for impact, sustainability, metrics proposed by author to measure progress against strategic goals, originality, demonstrated fitness for purpose and structured methodology.

The announcement of the overall (Phase Two) Winner of the Caribbean Innovators Challenge: Mobile Application for Development, will take place on April 15th, 2011 by the organizing committee.

High-res photography is available: http://www.flickr.com/photos/theuwi/sets/72157625061213016/ .

For more details please visit the Caribbean Innovators Challenge: Mobile Application for Development website at http://www.edu.tt/cirp/cic/