From the 23rd to the 25th of October, the Caribbean Investment Forum 2023 was held in the Bahamas. Organised by partner Caribbean Export Development Agency with well-known entities in the region, such as Caricom and the Caribbean Development Bank, the event is the marketplace and nerve centre for sharing, learning, preparing and finalising business and investment deals that support the regional transformation to A Bold New Caribbean.
EU-LAC Digital Accelerator led a conference presentation, organised a tailored workshop and held enriching meetings with organisations and companies willing to identify business opportunities for digital transformation with European and Latin American counterparts.
Structured in two parts, one open to the public to present the EU-LAC Digital Acceleration programme and another addressing Caribbean corporates’ challenges, both blocks gathered mass attendance from Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystem. During the first part, Sergio Bandinelli, Coordinator of the project, introduced the importance of innovation as an element of competitiveness highlighting the benefits of looking for innovation outside the organisation and exploring open innovation opportunities.
During the second part, the EU-LAC Digital Accelerator’s two-hour session aimed at, first, identifying digital and innovative challenges from companies and company associations, and second, convey the spirit of building business partnerships between corporates and startups from Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. In other words, participants had the opportunity to discover how EU-LAC Digital Accelerator can help their corporates connect to startup talent and invest in digital innovation; more concretely, how to engage in the Smart Production Call for Challenges.
During the workshop, sectors that arouse a lot of interest were identified such as agrofood, renewable energy, fintech, digital services, logistics and transport, all of them totally aligned with the work carried out by our partner Caribbean Export Development Agency. The main idea was turning companies’ problems into challenges. Working on the identification and the definition, Caribbean corporates like Neutral Initiative or Veekle submitted challenges related to alternative energy and mobility.
In addition to presenting opportunities and organising inspiring workshops, members of the EU-LAC Digital Accelerator had set up a stand available for consultation, information and monitoring of the identified opportunities. Thanks to all these actions, the innovation ecosystem and other stakeholders of EU-LAC Digital Accelerator got to know the benefits that joining the initiative will bring to their businesses.
