NIHERST: Science and Technology

“The real source of wealth and capital in this new era is not material things... it is the human mind, the human spirit, the human imagination, and our faith in the future.” ~ Steve Forbes, President and CEO of Forbes and Editor-in-Chief of Forbes magazine.

NIHERST is very pleased to present this publication, ‘Business and Innovation: Success Stories from Trinidad and Tobago’. This book is one of several outputs of a wider NIHERST initiative – the “Foresight, Growth and Innovation Project, which was launched at the end of 2005. One of the aims of the project is to build greater awareness around the critical role of innovation in sustainable socio-economic development and competitiveness. It also provides practical support to help budding entrepreneurs identify potential business development opportunities in some key sectors. Since the project’s inception, the Trinidad and Tobago Foresight and Innovation (TTFI) Network has been established, and sector studies using foresight and technology road-mapping techniques have been undertaken, out of which several ‘best bets’ for investment have been identified.

‘Success Stories’ features 14 thriving companies whose founders have demonstrated tremendous creativity, pioneering spirit and innovative thinking in establishing and growing indigenous and unique businesses. The larger and more long-standing enterprises have had to adapt to the rapidly changing, very demanding conditions of the high-tech, global economic environment, while the smaller, niche entrepreneurs faced the many challenges of bringing a cherished idea to fruition.

This book showcases a small but diverse cross-section of Trinidad and Tobago’s business, manufacturing and creative sectors, and serves as a basic guide to the innovative process. The further diversification and advanced industrialisation of the national economy will depend increasingly on our ability to produce more innovators and inventors, who can create and apply knowledge to continuously improve the competitiveness of our products, processes and business systems. As economist, Mary King put it, developing a knowledge-based economy will “depend not only on exploiting efficiently our natural and other resources …but on using our brains and development and research to produce products and services which are differentiated from those usually on the market, since we will not otherwise be able to compete on economies of scale.”

NIHERST therefore hopes that the examples that illustrate innovation in this book will inspire many more nationals to have confidence in their own vision, creative instincts and specialized capabilities to generate new ‘success stories’.

For inquiries in obtaining a copy of the publication, please contact Shirley Lewis at 622 7880 or slewis@niherst.gov.tt. The cost of handling is TT$60 or US$20 for non-residents.