Design and conquer

As Mashramani recedes and carnival season unfurls in the Caribbean, few who see the floats can fail to admire our capacity for creativity and ingenuity. The Caribbean has a certain flair for design and innovation. As a region, we should probably devote a little more time and energy to try to harness these talents. We should also reflect on the relationship between individual innovation and the physical and intellectual infrastructures that create conditions conducive to innovation.

Creative work embraces both the arts and the sciences. It underpins all sorts and scales of endeavour; from impoverished local artists who try out new materials in the absence of supplies of paint or canvas to the chattering classes in London who now take bespoke courses in shoe-making. There are many strands of creative work in the Caribbean. One is purely artistic, the stuff of the carnival, an established area of creative work with secure (but seasonal) income streams. Another is rooted in a long ingrained Caribbean tradition of ‘make do and (a)mend’ and craft a tool to fit a need rather than make money from it. Twenty-five years ago, for example, ‘solar’ panels wired to car batteries could be found outside small shacks in Sophia. Although rudimentary, they anticipated as much as echoed the design of mainstream solar power. A third creative strand is evident in the products and services of an army of bottom-house, back-room, spare-time dressmakers, chefs, salesmen, designers and producers. This group, largely undocumented in our histories, has always contrived to find and plug gaps in the market, to fill a need, to carve a niche for what they do.

Six months ago, Bill Keller, an American columnist, analysed the success of Cheong Choon Ng, a Malaysian immigrant to the USA, who designed (and marketed) the now omnipresent Rainbow Loom, a popular toy that produces bracelets made of brightly-coloured rubber bands. Keller, somewhat predictably, celebrated America’s role as the “world’s cradle of innovation” and listed “the main components of America’s success as an incubator of new things: a welcome mat for talented, ambitious immigrants; an education system that values creativity. The availability of start-up capital; patent laws that protect intellectual property; an infrastructure that gets things shipped and marketed; and, perhaps most important, a culture that preaches opportunity and celebrates the risk-taker, the pioneer. From the Wright Brothers taking flight, to Bill Bowerman of Nike using a waffle iron to revolutionize running shoes, to Steve Jobs and his beautiful machines, to Choon Ng, we worship the inventive spark.” Ironically, of course, very few of these conditions exist in any great measure in the Caribbean, except perhaps when it comes to Carnival. And yet, across the region and in every sphere of life (the arts, commerce, agriculture, industry), there are examples of the “innovative dynamism” celebrated by Keller.

Not so long ago, small poor countries like ours could only hope to contribute to the world economy in very limited spheres, principally as suppliers of unprocessed goods rather than as innovators or manufacturers. Traditionally, our economies have been geared to the large-scale production of crops (sugar, rice) and the extraction and export of raw materials (lumber, bauxite, oil and gold). That paradigm is shifting. Nowadays, the President of Haiti, the region’s poorest country, aspires to turn his country into a technology hub and has enlisted the assistance of Silicon Valley behemoths such as Apple (iPads and online books), Facebook (increased access to the internet) and Google (free applications for three years) to achieve this.

Further, respected analysts, such as Chris Anderson, assert that the internet has created an economy of targeted niche products. They predict a new era of micro-manufacturing. According to Anderson, the internet facilitates access to the means to create, to produce, to manufacture goods and at a far greater range of scale (from dozens to thousands) than has ever previously been the case. He detects “a manufacturing revolution” and predicts that “the shape of the twenty-first century’s industrial structure will be very different from the twentieth century’s. Rather than top-down innovation by some of the biggest companies in the world, we’re seeing bottom-up innovation by countless individuals, including amateurs, entrepreneurs, and professionals.”

If this is the case, the Caribbean is surely well placed to contribute. Sometimes, clues to the future lie in our past. At different times, Guyana has grown and exported coconuts, rubber and ground provisions. Today, there are a host of small-scale local ventures to grow these items and to manufacture and export products based on them. Furniture-making from wood products and manufacture of honey-based products are other local cottage industries taking flight. There are signs too of broader frameworks such as the Caribbean Export Development Agency starting to provide a little of the infrastructure and training needed to catalyse the process and further diversify the products.

Last year, with their support, a Guyana Fashion Designers Council was set up. A few days ago, Guyanese designer Michelle Cole (now resident abroad), won a significant fashion award in New York.

Historically, Jamaica has often pioneered the development and design of alternative products and it continues to lead the way, including in the key area of merging academic research with entrepreneurial initiatives. So, for example, the Mona campus recently announced a plan to produce cassava flour in partnership with the Jamaican government and a Jamaican manufacturer. While coconut farms collapse in Trinidad and struggle in Guyana, Jamaica has a state-of-the-art 685 acre coconut farm in St Thomas which produces cold press virgin coconut oil and bottled coconut water. Jamaica exports products to 68 countries and its exports to Canada alone were valued at Cdn$274 million a few years ago. Elsewhere in the region, entrepreneurs have worked successfully with marginal groups to create marketable products. In Haiti, the Vanilla Project, a business venture that will market Haitian ice-cream in Baltimore and provides income for hundreds of peasant farmers in Haiti, is also moving into making chocolate. Boutique field-to-market initiatives are also gaining pace. In Barbados, for example, the chocolate makers, Agapey use entirely local crops to produce a range of chocolate.

The space between producer and manufacturer, between creativity and commerce is shrinking significantly. We should try to take advantage of this. Our students have shown an awareness of the possibilities and a capacity to respond. Last year’s Caribbean-wide Sagicor Visionaries Challenge, a science competition (in which 18 local schools participated) grew out of an initiative to enhance science, technology, engineering and maths education in the region. The winning entry included plans to grow a coconut grove in the school grounds to produce coconut water, coconut-based snacks, material for making jewellery and ornaments and an outdoor space to relax. Perhaps, in this revolution, the young will lead the way.