BANK ON ME is headed to Trinidad and possibly elsewhere in the Eastern Caribbean.
At a prize giving ceremony for 2015 winner Sean Carter and other finalists yesterday at the Cave Hill School of Business, Alison Saunders managing director of Blue Waters Productions, which produces the reality television show for entrepreneurs, said the programme was being exported.
In addition to the broadcast of the latest Barbados edition on 24 television stations throughout the Caribbean, Saunders and her team “are currently working on the Trinidad version”.
“So that is the next one that we hope to roll out this year October, that’s what we are aiming for to be able to actually have that broadcast there. I have already been there twice and there is a lot of interest from partners but now that we are through with this we now have to push ahead on that. We have some interest in [Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States] so that will be probably 2016,” she said.
While happy with the outcome of the second edition of Bank on ME, Saunders called for more financial support for people involved in audio/visual production enterprises, which “is very important to our economic future in Barbados”.
“I believe the audio/visual sector is a sector that has a lot of potential for adding to the economic development of Barbados and the Caribbean. I think we have the talent and we have a lot of great ideas, but what has been a constraint has been the finance and for a lot of people who have been trying over many years to produce world class productions it takes a lot. So it’s really important therefore as a community that we create the environment to foster this kind of development,” she said.
Carter, whose solar thermal air conditioning units captured the imagination of the judges, said in the wake of his win he was poised to expand his business Rhema Cooling, including buying more vehicles and hiring more technicians.
His prizes included $15 000 cash from main sponsor Scotiabank, advertising in the Barbados Yellow Pages, a scholarship for short courses at Cave Hill School of Business, communication services from SFA Communications, a QuickBooks package and training compliments QB Med Barbados, and a Youth Entrepreneurship Scheme course. (SC)
