ST JAMES, Jamaica – Jamaica mobile app developers, Same Logic and Bookfusion, were two of five winners at the Caribbean Mobile Innovation Project’s (CMIP) PitchIT Caribbean tech-entrepreneurship competition, which ended yesterday.

Same Logic and Bookfusion along with the other three winners, Wanderscape of Trinidad, Directory.GY of Guyana, and Medi Revu of Barbados, were selected after two rigorous days of pitching to two panels of judges and an audience of regional and global investors.  

The top five teams each took home US$5,000 in seed funding to develop their businesses and have also been awarded spots in PitchIT Caribbean business accelerators across the region.

Chief Judge Dushyant Savadia of Jamaican security technology firm Amber Connect, who announced the five winners, could hardly contain his excitement over what he said were the impressive pitches the initial 10 finalists made to the panel of four judges, earlier in the day.

“What I saw today was not just Jamaica, Trinidad, Barbados, it was truly world-class,” Savadia said amid the applause.   “What I have seen here was truly outstanding, truly tremendous, so congratulations to all 10”.

A total of 25 groups of mobile app developers from seven countries across the Caribbean, participated in the competition, the aim of which is to enhance the region’s mobile app development ecosystem.

The project, which is part of the Entrepreneurship Programme for Innovation in the Caribbean (EPIC), is being executed by the University of the West Indies Consortium, with funding from the Government of Canada and the World Bank.   

Other entrants were Carib Auto Express and Caribbean Transit Solutions of Barbados, Linkup Group of Dominica, Ash.co of St Kitts and Nevis, FARMS of St Lucia and Kewplus, Software Interactive, Wallet Injurecare Utility, Caribbean Treasure and Drop and Lifeball Technologies of Trinidad and Tobago and ClickPaye, Money Mobile Solutions, MekUp Jamaica, GetThere, Eventah, and Pandosoft of Jamaica.