SLYBT Hosts Another Successful GEW 2021 Partners’ Meeting

The St. Lucia Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture through the St. Lucia Youth Business Trust has hosted the second official Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) 2021 Partners’ meeting. Held on Tuesday 18th May 2021 via the zoom platform, the meeting aimed to realise two main objectives: To begin considering and discussing what type of activities partners may wish to host for GEW 2021 and to see how the GEW Group can broaden the number of partner agencies which will join the celebration of GEW 2021.

Proceeding the welcome and introductions of persons in attendance, Meeting Chair and Executive Director of the St. Lucia Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Brian Louisy implored attendees to envision GEW 2021 as a collective endeavour noting that, all the programmes and activities which the GEW 2021 calendar would ultimately entail, would be initiatives led by various partners who are part of the network for Global Entrepreneurship St. Lucia.

The discussion which ensued surrounding the type of activities partners may wish to host brought to light three main constructs for consideration namely, technology and digitization, the altering of the entrepreneurship narrative locally and capacity building.

It was suggested that potential activities should be centered around a particular theme that resonates with the network and targeted audience, based on the different challenges which persons have faced over the past year. Those challenges would in turn be incorporated to generate a representative theme, from which activities that provide possible solutions can be developed.

Ideally, one of the key challenges identified as an overriding issue that can be leveraged during GEW 2021, is that of business operations and the fact that many entrepreneurs and small business owners had their operations hampered due to the pandemic. In this vein, Technology and Digitization presents as a critical avenue for attention.

To advance the discussion further, it was purported that the time was opportune to change the way persons perceive entrepreneurship and what it means in our local culture, especially as we emerge from

a pandemic. It was stressed that GEW 2021 is the perfect vehicle to help persons view entrepreneurship as something that is empowering, as opposed to the negatively burdensome connotation it carries. Additionally, it provides great potential to explore possible opportunities in other parts of the world which may have cultures similar to ours, through which fruitful linkages can be forged.

Lastly,capacity building was noted as a matter of great concern as it relates to entrepreneurs, qualifying it as another potential thematic area for this year’s celebration. Attendees agreed that there were several areas that the average entrepreneur tends to overlook and on a grander scale, it would profit them a great deal to build their expertise in these spheres.

In summative remarks, attendees were implored to consider how to broaden the list of potential partners who could bring their interest, knowledge, influence and proficiency to the idea of the creating and sustaining the entrepreneurship ecosystem locally and aid in delivering some of the initiatives which were conferred