This New Collective Wants To Be “The Y Combinator Of The Caribbean”
A group of British Caribbean professionals has launched the Caribbean Tech Collective, an initiative designed to bring together Caribbean founders, professionals, and investors in the tech industry, according to The Voice.
The Caribbean Tech Community
Only 4% of people in the tech industry identify as Black in the UK, with Africans making up a significant amount of that number. The Voice reported that tech startups receive under 0.1% of global venture capital funding in the Caribbean. In 2023, venture capital investment in Caribbean tech just reached $215 million, and there are currently only 1,160 high-tech startups in the Caribbean.
Kadeem Campbell, a consultant and founder at SwamAI, Jenai Edwards, a product designer, and Rhianna Kyeremateng, a data analyst, founded the Caribbean Tech Collective to address some of these challenges.
Building a Caribbean tech ecosystem
The Caribbean Tech Collective aims to bring together Caribbean tech professionals in the UK while also serving as the Y Combinator of the Caribbean by investing in British-Caribbean and Caribbean region startups.
“We are intentional about engaging the Caribbean community, including those from underrepresented backgrounds in the UK, like Haitians and Anguillans,” it says on their website. “We are focused on the UK-Caribbean diaspora, but the goal is to build stronger links back home.”
“Too often, people across the Caribbean are doing great work in isolation. Founders, engineers, and professionals, all building but regionally disconnected. That’s why we’ve launched the Caribbean Tech Collective, a space to connect, build, and create new pipelines into the Caribbean tech ecosystem,” Campbell wrote in a LinkedIn post.
Its first event takes place on Thursday, 3rd July and includes a panel of speakers from the Caribbean diaspora.
Image: Caribbean Tech Collective
