By University of The Bahamas

The Bahamas and Belize have collaboratively made history by winning the Compete Caribbean Mediathon held recently in Barbados, November 22^nd-23^rd, 2016. It was the Caribbean’s first mediathon.

The winning proposal came from a team comprising University of The Bahamas Director of Communication Mrs. Tameka Lundy and UB Media Journalism student Deanya Knowles and Belize television personalities Courtney Weatherburne and Marleni Cuellar.

The winning proposal, called “STEM-tastic”, aims to leverage traditional and new media to increase the participation of Caribbean nationals in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) careers. The proposal involves producing a whimsical book series for 8-11 year olds in the Caribbean region which showcases success stories of individuals whose STEM careers have made them icons. The compelling feature of the book series would be the use of augmented reality technology to reinforce interest in books and reading and encourage young children to aspire to careers in the STEM field.

Each team pitched ideas to a judging panel of experts which included Executive Director of Compete Caribbean, Sylvia Dohnert; IDB Communications Consultant, Pamala Proverbs; Secretary General of the Caribbean Broadcasting Union, Sonia Gill; Editor-in-Chief of MIT Technology Review, Marta del Amo and Rudy Hogan, Second Secretary Development, Government of Canada.

The Bahamas-Belize team will be funded to participate in an overseas science, technology and innovation communications event and will receive three mentoring sessions with OPINNO, a global innovation firm that helps large corporations to transform through the innovative methodologies used by start-ups and entrepreneurs.

Compete Caribbean hosted the media challenge to engage media and communication professionals in the production of content to support science, technology and innovation in the Caribbean region. Compete Caribbean is a private sector development programme that provides technical assistance grants and investment funding to support productive development policies, business climate reforms, clustering initiatives and Small and Medium Size Enterprise (SME) development activities in the Caribbean region. The programme, jointly funded by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the United Kingdom Department for International Development (DFID) and the Government of Canada, supports projects in 15 countries.