Barbados to host Caribbean Youth Entrepreneurship Summit

Regional policymakers, young entrepreneurs, and other major stakeholders, will meet in Barbados on Thursday 24th September, 2015 during the Caribbean Youth Entrepreneurship Summit (C-YES), to chart a future for youth entrepreneurship in the Caribbean.

The C-YES is a new platform for entrepreneurs and policy makers, to collectively build a better future for entrepreneurship development in the Caribbean.It will also provide a golden opportunity to engage governments, regional stakeholders and other institutions in an examination of our entrepreneurial ecosystem, with a view to further strengthening the impact of entrepreneurship as a driver of economic growth in the region.

The Summit will be formally opened by Honourable Stephen Lashley, Minister of Culture, Sport and Youth and opening remarks will be delivered by Ambassador Larry L. Palmer, U.S. Ambassador, Barbados and Eastern Caribbean.

Trinidad and Tobago entrepreneur, Mrs.Tameika Fletcher-Birmingham shall deliver the keynote address. Other speakers include Mr.David Clarke, Chairman of the Barbados Youth Business Trust and representatives from UWI, CARICOM, the Caribbean Development Bank and Youth Business International.

C-YES will be co-hosted by a number of agencies that support young entrepreneursfrom Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Lucia and Dominica along with London-based network organization Youth Business International (YBI), who have reinforced their commitment towards the continued development of youth entrepreneurship. During the past three (3) years, these organizations have been working collaboratively to deliver the Youth Entrepreneurship Program for the Eastern Caribbean (YEPEC), with funding fromUSAID.

YEPEC involved the delivery of high quality training, mentoring and network support to help young people to establish sustainable businesses, as well as capacity-building of the institutions involved in the provision of this support.