Local technology companies are being encourage to sign up and take advantage of the Jamaica Promotions Corporation’s (Jampro) newly launched technology innovation district, TID, acceleration project.

The project, which was launched on Tuesday at Jampro’s office in Kingston, is a product under the global services sector project, an initiative by the Government of Jamaica and the Inter-American Development Bank. The TID is a virtual one-year project that is free for local tech firms.

Jampro is looking to recruit 20 tech firms that are involved in software development, digital services management, cybersecurity and web and mobile app development. The firms must be tax compliant and a registered company in Jamaica that has been in operation for at less three years with at least five employees. Five companies already signed up during its launch.

The technology acceleration project is geared towards enabling Jamaica to advance further along the global digital services value chain and to support the growth of businesses and achieve sustainable economic growth for Jamaica through the export of digital services.

“The project’s mandate is to develop a skills system that responds to the needs and priorities of local businesses, aligned to the global digital services sector and which will ultimately assist with driving economic growth,” Shullette Cox, president of Jampro, said while addressing an audience dominated by tech firms.

According to Cox, in order for the country to truly achieve economic success, it must formulate and implement strategies to grow export.

“The technology accelerator project seeks to establish an ecosystem to support the development of tech companies that are scalable, ready for acceleration so that they may be able to successfully deliver exportable digital services.”

The project will also enable Jampro to build a portfolio of these service providers and exports thus enabling Jamaica to become the global service destination of choice. Cox added that the strategy is to grow both the size and number of companies that can export digital services.

In recognising that the local tech sector comprises mainly of small and medium-sized firms that specialises in key areas of tech services, Jampro says the firms are growing in number and sizes and the Government is committed to helping these firm grow. As such, as a part of the preposition, Jampro will be providing coaching, mentoring, training and exposure to international markets to help firms to grow .

“It will help you [tech firms] to build the capacity of your funds to close those gaps that you had, hindering you from rarely getting good access to international market,” explained zone manager for TID Tastey Blackman, while giving an overview of the project. She further added that “it will allow you [tech firms] to participate in international missions that will be operated and managed by Jampro as well as work with the international players.”

According to Blackman, one of the first things that will be done when companies sign up is a needs assessment to see what gaps the firms have and develop a suite of training and activities to close them. The other aspect of the benefits is access to market, “where we [Jampro] take you on technicians, we take you on business missions to see overseas qualified leads and these qualified leads are going to be companies that we have already assessed that are truly interested in doing business and outsourcing tech work to Jamaican companies.” Blackman said.

She further highlighted that an innovation exchange will also be a part of the project to allow businesses to meet both local and overseas tech firms, to interact, exchange ideas and learn from each other and engage in possible collaboration.

Minister of Industry, Investment and Commerce Aubyn Hill, who was also in attendance, explained that Jamaica will never become a wealthy nation if it does not export more. He revealed that in 2021, the country had a negative trade balance of US$4.534 billion.

“We exported US$1.441 billion and we imported goods and services for US$5.975 billion, so the negative figure is huge,” Hill said.

He believes the TID acceleration project will help the country diversify and strengthen its export of services at a high level in the value chain.

“We can’t just stay down here at BPO, the country has made significant progress with BPO and global digital services, we must, it will continue to be a factor but we must always set up.”