NIHERST: Science and Technology

The NIHERST foresight project generated thirty-five ‘Best Bet’ opportunities in five sectors – biotechnology, food and beverages, tourism, niche manufacturing and the creative industries. The “Best Bets” were examined and refined at the workshops held in June and July 2006. They were also scrutinized by a panel of prominent stakeholders in business development and the investment and banking sectors. The exercise confirmed that some ‘Best Bets’ offer greater commercial success for Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) than others.

The ‘Best Bets’ with the greatest opportunities for T&T were meticulously analyzed using a template for building substantial business investment cases. To complete the template, research and consultation with key stakeholders to further test and refine the assumptions underlying the “Best Bets” ensued. The expected results, which are due to be released shortly, are twenty sector ‘Best Bet’ investment propositions with a 10-year financial model and development roadmap.

A customised NEXT Corp simulation workshop – TriniSim - was held on November 30th 2006, to ‘test drive’ one best bet from each of the five sectors within a simulated marketplace in 2008. This marketplace included key players across the value chain that each “Best Bet” business proposition would need to consider working with, in real life, if it was to be successful. Each group was given set objectives to achieve. To do that required the five sector business venture groups to negotiate with other key stakeholder groups and do ‘deals’ that would enable them to achieve their objectives. The TriniSim workshop, which involved a record 65 plus participants, proved highly successful as teams either met or surpassed their objectives with great gusto.

Future plans for this project is to take foresighting to Tobago and to the rest of the Caribbean through CCST (Caribbean Council for Science & Technology) and with the support of CAIC and the OAS.

Foresight, Growth & Innovation

Sector Foresight Workshops