The United States Embassy in Georgetown announced the ten winners of the “Entrepreneurship Speed Challenge” on Tuesday at the United States Ambassador’s residence where a number of private sector members and lending companies met with the young business innovators.
The entrepreneur competition was initiated to provide young Guyanese with an opportunity to pitch their business ideas and have a chance to see those concepts materialize in celebration of Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW).
The winners of the competition were: Christopher Wilson, Ian Cole, Troy Plowell, Diquan Lewis, Jeromie Rollins, Raule Williams, Marvin Wray, Candace Wickham, Anthony Willis and Jomo Wilson.
Wickham, the lone girl among the winners, said that she was excited to have her idea carried so far and was hoping that a company would invest in her speech therapy business. “I want to see this materialise because it’s the finances that I need to help push it forward,” she explained.
Lewis, 18, the youngest of the winners, told Stabroek News that he was “one step closer to achieving my dreams.”
Lewis hopes to open a vending machine business. “I would really like it if they do it again next year but right now I’m really glad that these professionals liked my ideas and gave me an opportunity to develop my dreams,” he added.
Rollins said he hopes to develop a welding and fabrication business. “I’m getting an opportunity to go where my passion lies and I’m very grateful for that,” he said.
Rosh Khan, founder of SocialRank and one of the judges of the competition, made a call for more business innovations to be initiated in Guyana. “This country has a very hungry population that wants to make things happen but too many times they can’t because they either don’t have the funding or access to education,” he said.
The innovators demonstrated desires to see their ideas surface in the business sector, Khan said. “What separated these ten winners from the other persons who took part was their passion. It is not about the idea, even though some of the ideas were great and new, it is about their passion and their willingness to make things happen,” he observed.
United States Ambassador, Brent Hardt, said that the competition presented a “business incubator” for the young winners’ ideas to become a reality. “This is a wonderful opportunity for private sector leaders and lenders as well, where they can hear from some of Guyana’s up and coming entrepreneurs and business leaders,” he noted.
Members of the private sector and money lenders, entrepreneurs and investors were invited by the embassy to the reception, where the ten winners pitched the ideas again. The idea was to create networking between the winners and big corporate businesses and gain their attention and possibly financial help to build their businesses. “The purpose is to connect them with the people who have the money to invest,” Hardt said, inviting them to network.
The winners were each given three minutes to pitch their ideas to investors. “It’s not just about ideas. It’s about making ideas happen,” Hardt added, while highlighting that many young aspiring entrepreneurs living in countries with underdeveloped fiscal systems, “overdeveloped” governments and inadequate infrastructure are slapped with “discouraging obstacles.”
“However, Successful entrepreneurs do not take ‘no’ for an answer-“no” may just mean ‘not now.’ An entrepreneur will figure out a way to fit a square block into a round hole,” he said. “If they have a passion they will make it happen,” he added, reiterating Khan’s words.
Ramesh Persaud, Chief Executive Officer of the Institute of Private Enterprise Development Limited, said that he was shocked by the amount of talented young people that pitched their ideas. He stated his hopes for the project to be an annual one.
