On June 21st, 2012 we staged another successful Kingston BETA, just under 100 people in attendance and some startups pitching. What they pitched was in perfect alignment with the panel discussion: Apps Caribe – How can/will mobile apps transform the Caribbean. The Panelists were Matthew McNaughton, Co-founder Slashroots Developers Community; Khary Sharpe, Ceo of Bakari Digital; Bevil Wooding, Internet Strategist/Founder of Bright Path Foundation ( Trinidad) ; Rodney Browne, Ceo of eCaribbean Ltd ( St Kitts) and Tony Eliasz, Head of Mobile Innovation and Entrepreneurship at InfoDev, World Bank. See photo.
So who are entrepreneurs who pitched their ideas?
Name: SlateIt
Description: Blackberry Mobile App to update and manage your Facebook Fan Pages on the go. It’s targeted to social media managers, small and medium sized businesses.
Tech Entrepreneur: Jerome Campbell
Name: LeadsRiver.com
Description: It is outsourced lead generation for freelance Web Designers & Developers.
Tech Entrepreneur: Marc Gayle
Name: Exceed DX
Description: Its an Enterprise Customer Communication Platform that allow medium to large organizations effectively communicate with their customers via multiple channels. These include Email, Printed Documents, Letters and SMS. The system allow users to create document templates, email templates and SMS templates, connect to their business system database and automatically generate messages. Additionally the system has a web portal that allow users to generate complex documents such as contracts, statements etc. It also handles the generation of large number of documents in as a job.
Market: Utilities (Light, Water, Telephone etc), Insurance Companies, Banks and Investment Companies, Government, Legal Firms etc
Great post and info on Kingston Beta, I hope to hold the platform some day.
Personally, I believe we need more innovation that targets the youth in order to get them involved, motivated and accustomed online. Here’s a mere dev/entrepreneur’s take on the presenting start-ups.
Slateit may be irrelevant once Facebook makes a change or few, including updates to their original App. Pages can be updated and edited via most mobile phones using Facebook Mobile, and most modern smartphones can browse fb’s full site with ease. Slateit has a tall ‘slate’ to climb.
Leads river is genius, in regards to finding a niche and capitalizing on the opportunity. That niche can be expanded as the site/company itself grows. We have more than enough talent in Jamaica alone to utilize such a service.
ExeedDX must tailor to our local market directly, otherwise the global players in customer communication may see the potential in focusing here in Jamaica. All and all, if they can get it done and secure contracts with the utilities, ExeedDX can be very profitable.
Just my totally un-biased 2c (opinions). Keep up the good work, looking forward to the next Kingston Beta & StartupWeekend!