On Thursday 6th December 2018, UTT's Business Accelerator/Incubator - uSTART hosted "Women in Entrepreneurship" as part of Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) 2018. The Global Entrepreneurship Network (GEN), the global GEW organisers, declared four themes for this year's GEW 2018 celebration: women, youth and inclusion in entrepreneurship, as well as connecting ecosystems around the world. uSTART's focus was in keeping with the first theme, women. Attendees included representatives from partner institutions, CARIRI and NEDCO, as well as UTT staff, students and entrepreneurs and members of the public interested in pursuing business ventures. They were able to gain useful insight from the experiences shared by the three presenters, all of whom are successful uSTART entrepreneurs operating in different industries.

The Presenters: (from left to right) Nikita Legall, Arlene Nysus, Jamilia Alexander

Jamilia Alexander, founder of the fashion management company, "Vice Versa Fashion Company Limited," in her presentation, titled "Entrepreneurship = Innovation," emphasised the need for entrepreneurs to be able to continually shift economic resources out of an area of lower and into an area of higher productivity and greater yield. She elaborated on optimising factors of production and further attested to the importance of the entrepreneur recognising herself as equal and capable and as the main resource to her business.

Arlene Nysus, founder of "NICE US Geriatric Training and Care Agency," in her aptly named presentation, "W.O.M.E.N. - When Opportunity Meets Existing Need," used her own experiences to convey the importance of learning from competitor analyses and critical feedback. She expressed her motivation to eradicate the social issue of elderly abuse and subsequently underscored that every entrepreneur should similarly have a clearly defined aim which drives her business.

Nikita Legall, founder of "Tropical Hives," in her presentation, "Writing Your Story," shared some hard truths about entrepreneurship including the lack of financial stability in the first few years of business and how she personally dealt with this. Further, like Arlene, she compounded that ultimately the key to resilience throughout all stages of business is an invested passion in the purpose of the business so much so that it fulfills and drives the entrepreneur herself in periods of both difficulty and profit.

"Women in Entrepreneurship" Attendees and uSTART Staff

The discussions closed with an appeal for greater cooperation amongst UTT and other partner national institutions within the entrepreneurial ecosystem to centralise information on entrepreneurial resources and materials that are available to local women entrepreneurs and to offer business support services that strategically take into greater account the gendered dimensions of entrepreneurs' needs.

The GEW initiative is the world's largest celebration of the innovators and job creators who launch startups that bring ideas to life. It is powered by the Kauffman Foundation and supported by dozens of world leaders and a network of more than 15,000 partner organisations. In Trinidad and Tobago, YBTT (Youth Business Trinidad and Tobago) spearheads GEW and since uSTART's inception in 2014, UTT has been one of the main GEW collaborators each year.