On Thursday 21st April 2016, CARIRI’s mCentre hosted 15 competitors who were all vying for the chance to be the local representative in a regional app competition to be held in Jamaica later this year, called the Caribbean Mobile Innovation Project. Held at the Centre for Enterprise Development in Freeport, this one-day competition, CODESprint 2016, allowed competitors to showcase and highlight their apps.
CodeSPRINT 2016 was hosted by PitchIT Caribbean and CARIRI’s mCentre and is a mobile application development competition geared towards bringing together developers, subject matter experts, and idea generators all in one venue for the purpose of developing and promoting mobile applications.
From as early as 10am, competitors started their presentations and each was just as impressive as the last. The judges consisted of a Microsoft representative, an Appreneur and two CARIRI staff members, and they were able to question each competitor on their app and were able to provide valuable feedback going forward.
The competition was intense and highlighted how many undiscovered apps are out there waiting to get their chance in the spotlight.
Winners of the competition were as follows:
- First place – Stephan James – Wanderscape (a new and exciting travel marketplace and mobile app where you can discover, share & book activities by local insiders.)
- Second place – Keenen Charles – Tap Tag
- Third Place – Raees Rahim – Trini Questions : Trivia
- Most innovative app – Devin Escallier – Numgical
- Best Designed App- Raees Rahim – Trini Questions: Trivia
- The Microsoft Imagine Award: Corporates- Jeremiah Cruickshank
PitchIT Caribbean, under the remit of the Caribbean Mobile Innovation Project (CMIP), is a two-tiered partnership approach to support growth-oriented mobile app businesses in the Caribbean.
Administered by a University of the West Indies (UWI) Consortium led by UWI Consulting Inc. and also comprising the Mona School of Business and Management (MSBM) and the Mona Business Support Services (MBSS), PitchIT Caribbean is a part of the Entrepreneurship programme for Innovation in the Caribbean (EPIC), funded by the Government of Canada and executed by InfoDev/World Bank, spanning 14 Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries.
PItchIT Caribbean is designed to strengthen the Caribbean mobile innovation ecosystem and enable sustainable and competitive mobile enterprises to grow through activities that will target early stage innovators and guide them to market readiness.
The aim is for the creation of a regional pool of high-growth potential mobile start-ups with the capacity to release their apps to the market and raise additional capital to grow.
The mHub partners of PitchIT Caribbean are all focused on building mobile innovation communities in the various CARICOM countries by convening a variety of local stakeholder groups.
The mHub partners of PitchIT Caribbean are:
- Barbados – BCSI Barbados Coalition of Service Industries.
- Trinidad – The Caribbean Industrial Research Institute.
- Dominica – National Telecommunications Regulatory Commission.
- St. Kitts and Nevis