By Riley Kaminer
There is a digital revolution happening in the Caribbean, and Miami stands to benefit. Our neighbors down south are increasingly using the internet, social media, mobile phones, eCommerce platforms, and more. A younger-than-average population in the Caribbean is leveraging their tech skills to improve lives in the islands and beyond.
Two of those young entrepreneurs are Kirk-Anthony Hamilton and Kyle Mahoney. They are the co-founders of Tech Beach Retreat, an organization that promotes innovation in the Caribbean and connects the region with Latin America, North America, and Africa.
Starting tomorrow (Oct. 25), Tech Beach will be hosting its annual summit in Miami at the AKA Hotel in Brickell. Over two days, participants will engage with world-class speakers, participate in workshops, watch panel discussions – and even get a flavor of some of Miami’s nightlife, as the event has an unusually high focus on hospitality.
Speakers include Silvina Moschini, Founder, President, and Chairwoman of Unicoin Inc; Shaun Vanweelden, Human Data and OpenAI; and Vanessa Williams, Senior Creative Marketing Manager, Emerging Audiences, Prime Video and Amazon Studios.
Google has partnered with Tech Beach in developing this year’s event. As such, its Director of Engineering, Barine Tee, will also provide participants with some insights into how large companies like Google devise the systems that enable them to build and manage products at a large scale. Tech Beach has been organizing a series of engagements with Google for Startups, including co-organizing a program over the last two weeks.
In an interview with Refresh Miami, Hamilton emphasized that it’s not just about the Caribbean. “We’re focused on bringing together Latin America and North America too. The Caribbean is just an additive that you don’t typically get to encounter in any other conference in the world.”
He noted that Tech Beach is pioneering in bringing together the Caribbean region. Case in point: he hails from Jamaica, while Mahoney is from Trinidad. “That’s a very unusual match-up in terms of people getting together, co-founding a business, and then operating it,” said Hamilton. Further, he noted that the Caribbean tech scene is at an “early but pretty exciting stage of development.”
The roughly 300 attendees at Tech Beach will have an intimate opportunity to connect with the 50 speakers. “We don’t have a backstage,” Hamilton shared, underscoring the unique opportunity participants will have to mingle with regional experts. “Our style of engagement is a lot deeper, longer, and hopefully more valuable as simply an invitation to attend a moment.”
According to Mahoney, there will be $1 billion of investment capital present between speakers and attendees. The organizers are particularly interested in getting more of the Miami community involved in everything Tech Beach.
“For us, it’s pretty amazing to be able to bring together so much value for the startup community across Latin America, the Caribbean, and the US and have that intersection between these three,” said Mahoney.
WHAT: Tech Beach Summit
WHERE: AKA Hotel (1395 Brickell Ave, Miami 33131)
WHEN: October 25th to 27th
WHO: Tech entrepreneurs interested in building bridges with the Caribbean
HOW: Learn more and purchase tickets through their website.
READ MORE IN REFRESH MIAMI:
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