Let us change our thinking from CARICOM (18m population) to Caribbean (40.5m population) distributed over four heritages – English (6m), French (11.2m), Dutch (0.8m) and Spanish (22.5m).
My maternal grandfather, circa 1900, entered the job market as a teenager. He got married and started a family in his late 20s and soon after fulfilled his passion and became the owner of a hardware store and the builder of bungalows to generate revenue, make a profit, build projected cash flow, and net worth (represented by a projected balance sheet) which defined his pension plan.Â
The processes available for the formal acquisition of knowledge are through primary, secondary, tertiary academic education and technical or vocational training. Apprenticeship is a powerful one-on-one training prospect. The opportunity to gain global experience is invaluable.
The benefits of walking have been abundant in boosting my holistic health. There is much to share business-wise, mentally, physically, socially, spiritually.
I have either walked alone or with family or friends on the beach, across the golf course, within botanical gardens, around a park, through the neighborhood, in hilly terrain, over and away, with a plethora of positive memories.
Even though the mix of resources varies from country to country and in the Diaspora, the one resource to be found in abundance in each country is talent,  in the areas of academia, art, business, culture, innovation, literature, music, problem-solving, public speaking, science, sport, and vision. In the Caribbean, intrinsic creative intellectual genius abounds.
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How can CARICOM pivot, using its own resources and talents, and how can we leverage the potential of USVI/CARICOM partnerships to our mutual benefit? Â
The challenge of life is about finding solutions for a continuing wave of problems. Some problems may be solved in the five sensory space (sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch) but for others we need to shift to the soul in a multisensory spiritual space. May I remind you of renowned author Wayne Dyer’s book “There’s a Spiritual Solution to Every Problem†and the biblical verse “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; lean not unto thine own understandingâ€. God is Love and love is the food of the soul. Let us feed our souls with love and become naturally empowered to expedite the national problem-solving process.
The “low hanging fruit†are (1) Education and training – partnerships between the University of the West Indies and the University of the Virgin Islands); (2) Tourism – embracing, enhancing and benefitting from the work already done by the Caribbean Tourism Organization and the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association; (3) Food – mobilizing a Caribbean Food Revolution U.S. market-pull initiative for Caribbean countries to supply products to the U.S. market; (4) Entrepreneurship – rationalization of the various initiatives in CARICOM and the USVI; (5) Cricket – a stronger bond between the USVI cricket authorities and Cricket West Indies; and (6) Oil refining given Guyana is one of the newest petroleum-producing regions in the world.
Now, our children are faced with public health and economic recovery problems. They are well-schooled in information technology and this will facilitate the design and implementation of effective and efficient solutions centered around Disruptive Innovation. Classical Disruptive Innovation is a new business model and technology to disrupt an existing market and significantly alter the way we do business.
As we enter the new year, let us recognize the importance of planning and embracing disruptive innovation strategies to systematically, effectively, and sustainably steer the tourism industry out of its current slump. We can do it!