ANNUAL REPORT 2021/22
Partnerships Two exciting partnership projects were set in motion during the review period. The UrpreneurPlus Accelerator programme is designed to provide extensive mentorship and training to a large number of entrepreneurs from the national environment and has a budget of TT$2.5M. it is a partnership between UWI Ventures Ltd and the Unit Trust Corporation of Trinidad & Tobago (UTC) that was proposed in June 2021 and launched in June 2022. Some of the current participants are featured in this report. The programme targets and support business start-ups focused on sustainability in areas such as fintech, agribusiness, eco-tourism, manufacturing, medicine, engineering and social enterprise. As part of the agreement, the UTC provides financial management expertise as well as capital to top performing projects (TT$2M in total) while UWI Ventures provides the programme’s administration and enterprise development support services including training and mentorship to the programme participants. The Entrepreneurship Unit successfully proposed a partnership with Republic Bank Limited to develop a programme for final year UWI students who wish to pursue an entrepreneurship path as an alternative to a postgraduate programme. The programme will have a Business Venture Track as well as a Social Enterprise Track. The Unit will provide mentorship and the training architecture while grants and financial services would be provided by the RBL. The Programme has a TT$1,000,000 budget for the development of two enterprise start-ups. The Entrepreneurship Unit also put forward a proposal for a business incubator for fashion entrepreneurs. It includes training, mentorship and business planning consultancy and has a TT$90,000 budget. The proposal was submitted to FashionTT for consideration.
Mentorship Programmme The Unit launched a pilot Mentorship Initiative in Semester 1 targeting recent graduates and third year UWI students who are serious about entrepreneurship and wish to access the mentorship and guidance of an experienced professional. Student-entrepreneurs are matched with suitable mentors who have agreed to offer their time and services. The programme provides mentorship sessions to a maximum of five student-entrepreneurs based on an application and selection process. Each student-entrepreneur will have access to three mentorship sessions from a suitable mentor who will be assigned to them based on the information they provided in their application form. The mentors include one representative from NEDCO, one from the TT Patent Office and one successful, well-established entrepreneur.
Marketing & Communications Realigning around Student Recruitment
Of particular note during the review period was the internal realignment of the Marketing & Communications (M&C) Office to better facilitate what is now a year- round student recruitment effort on the Campus. The establishment of a Brand & Recruitment Section brings together Digital Communications, Advertising, Outreach, Graphic Design and Multimedia Production. The first cycle of recruitment undertaken by the Section continued to take a multichannel, digital-first approach, where digital content, mobile applications, email marketing and online/ social media advertising formed the substantive part of the campaign which was supported by traditional advertising, digital and physical content, events, one-on-one outreach and earned media.
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