Meeting between staff from The Learning Centre (TLC) and members of Second Floor Studios
From left: Professor Ulrich Rauch, Keston Murphy, Colleen Weekes, Lystra Sampson-Ovid, Tieneka Seebaran, Alex Jadoo, Kyle Stephen and Jessica Yawching

uSTART, the business incubator/accelerator of The University of Trinidad and Tobago, is fulfilling its mandate in the development of  UTT’s entrepreneurial ecosystem and is enabling a culture of small business development. uSTART focuses on key areas such as fashion, animation, ICT, engineering and agro-processing, which are critical sectors for the promotion of growth and sustainability. UTT is actively developing opportunities for students to become entrepreneurs based on the new venture life cycle; from development of the idea, business plan, proof of concept, incubation and introduction into the marketplace, and production and sales.

uSTART has been in existence for just over a year and has become the entrepreneurial hub of UTT. The business incubator/accelerator not only facilitates collaboration among its entrepreneurs, but also encourages respective departments of the University to make use of the services offered by those from uSTART. One such department making full use of this is The Learning Centre (TLC), in its collaboration with Second Floor Studios (one of the companies under uSTART).

Second Floor Studios was accepted into uSTART in 2015 and provides services for animation, visual effects, motion design and video editing. They also create content for graphic design and computer generated imagery (i.e. 3D) and have recently expanded into web development.

UTT was successful in its bid to provide consultancy services for the development and delivery of an E-Based Competency Development Programme for public officers, for entry into the Management Support Series in the Public Service.  This was issued by the Government Human Resource Services (GHRS) in December 2014 on behalf of its client, the Ministry of Public Administration (MPA). A joint project steering team lead by TLC and Entrepreneurship and Business Development (EBD) was formed, in order to undertake and deliver the project within the stated time.

Second Floor Studios, in their agreement with TLC, is contracted to provide consultancy services integral to the design and administration of the e-Based Competency Development Programme. Its responsibility is to provide graphic design and web authoring support in the development of the three online courses prepared by the UTT/GHRS project team.

Congratulations to TLC and Second Floor Studios on this collaboration! In the coming months, stay tuned for new and exciting updates regarding uSTART as it continues to assist entrepreneurs in their respective paths to sustainable businesses.