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by Marlon Madden
The Barbados Coalition of Service Industries (BCSI) says it will be placing greater emphasis on education as it seeks to help its members rebuild and contribute more to economic activities.
President of the BCSI Paul Clarke told Today’s BUSINESS that he believed the creative industries segment of the services sector was especially ripe for further development.
Pointing out that work has already started in the area of knowledge building and upskilling of people in the creative industries, Clarke pointed to the recent partnership between the BCSI and the National Training Institute (NTI) and Coursera for the Fishbowl Conversation Series, stressing that this was “to help further the education of our members, because in this down period we think that is key”.
This is designed primarily to provide opportunities for business, professional and personal development of the BCSI members through free access to NTI and Coursera courses.
“We are doing quite a bit in support of the creative industries. We do see the creative industries as one of the forerunners for the rebuilding of the economy in the right way because obviously we had various challenges before in how things were done “So that is where the education of the members also comes into play – making sure that we do things in a different way and still be very active not only with our membership but with all of the various constituents including government and other stakeholders. So that is where the education comes in,” explained Clarke.
Giving a further sneak peek into the plans of the BCSI for this year, he said the association’s efforts were aimed at building out the wider services sector in new and developing areas, also through education.
“Outside of the Fishbowl Series, a major focus has been on education. So that NTI initiative with Coursera and having some people a little bit more qualified or educated in certain areas such as information Communication technology and NFTs (a form of digital ledger that can be traded), those are some areas where there are some possible opportunities for us in moving forward,” explained Clarke.
He also pointed to plans for the continued build out of the BCSI-led Firefly Project, a marketing platform that showcases emerging talent in the creative economy.
Clarke said the BCSI has been in discussions with companies in Africa on how best they could collaborate for the expansion of Bajan talent into that market and how they could source the necessary funding.
“We have been in talks . . . so that we can showcase more of the talent that we have because they are very open to seeing what we have to offer on the African continent,” he said.
Set to celebrate 20 years next year, the BCSI is expected to conduct more regular surveys among members to have empirical data on how the service industries were impacting the economy by sector.
“We are also looking at alternative funding opportunities, both locally, regionally and internationally,” added Clarke, who said discussions on that matter was now at a delicate stage.
While opting not to say with whom the BCSI was having discussions in relation to funding, Clarke pointed out that achieving it would make the organization less reliant on Government help and it would be able to build out the Firefly Project.
“In terms of building it out now from just a showcase to a developmental and export readiness tool for the creative industries so that people can really see the talent that we have here and look at ways of positively exploiting that talent that it can benefit Barbados,” he explained.
The BCSI is also expected to meet with officials from the Copyright Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (COSCAP) Inc. to discuss the possibility of having changes made to the cost structure that COSCAP has in place to benefit musicians.
Indicating that the BCSI should have a new Executive Director in place by the second quarter of this year, Clarke said, “we do expect some big things for the economy going forward. From the word on the ground, it is expected that some interesting things should come into play.”
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