The Ministry of Planning and Sustainable Developmentthrough its established Council for Competitiveness and Innovation (CCI) developed the “Idea 2 Innovation” (i2i) programme which gives an opportunity to innovators and inventors to submit proposals for innovative projects and creative initiatives for which the CCI would provide funding.
CARIRI was chosen as the Technical Executing Agency to the Programme. In this role,CARIRIprovideson-going technical, procurement and project monitoring support towards the proof of concept by the innovators, and also provides objective analysis and advice to the Ministry/CCI on key areas regarding funding continuance and compliance by persons or organizations accessing funding.
The i2i programme is designed to reward business creativity that has the potential to serve the national community by having positive development on Trinidad and Tobago economically or socially andis commercially viable.
What kind of ideas/proposals?
Participants/innovators were invited to submit inventions and creative initiatives in the following activity areas, including but not limited to:
- Manufacturing and manufacturing related
- Services
- Primary agriculture, bio-technology
- Creative industries
- Information and Communication Technology (ICT)
- Alternative/remedial energy and energy efficiency
- Agro-industrial processing
- Environment (clean technologies, eco-related activities)
- Bio-waste and other waste (including recycling activities)
- Tourism
The Ministry of Planning and Sustainable Development through the Council for Competitiveness and Innovation then identified projects that met stated criteria related to the characterisation of innovation and its lending principles, using the following guidelines:
- The creation of a new product, service, system design, process;
- The improvement of a new product, service, business process or system;
- A new process of adding value to a Trinidad and Tobago-sourced raw material.
- The products, services or processes should be able to find a market or use in the local or export market.
- Project impact, driving social and economic benefit and creation of sustainable, high-quality jobs.
Funding (grant):
Winning innovators/inventors were awarded grant funding in the following disbursement categories:
- TT$75,000
- TT$75,000-125,000
- TT$125,000-200,000
In the first year of the programme in 2013, a total of 50 grants were issued. The programme is continuing in 2014 with 56 applicants having been chosen for funding.