Susan Alzner of Shift7 will be one of the keynote speakers at the Sint Maarten Innovations, Initiatives and Industries Link-up Event (SMILE). Organizers were elated to announce this today to mark the final day of SMILE Early Bird Season.
Shift 7 believes in the collective genius of a community to transform people, places and systems. Solution making in their eyes takes place through inclusion. Technology plays a vital role in this process. How this works, will be explained in Alzners keynote SMILE speech ‘Unlocking the collective genius of community to transform people, places and systems’.
The Shift 7 team includes a diversity of experts with track records of achievement in technology, governments, the United Nations, arts and entertainment, management consulting and the non-profit sector. One of Alzners co-founders is Megan Smith, the U.S. chief technology officer at the Obama-administration and was the vice-president at Google.
The SMILE event was founded in 2018 and aims to highlight innovative and sustainable companies and projects and to facilitate business to business networking on island. Last year’s edition attracted over 300 visitors from 89 organizations representing 9 countries.
The 2019 event once again enjoys committed support from; 360 Innovation (Aruba), the Chamber of Commerce and Industry (COCI), ORCO Bank, Global Resourcing, University of St Martin (USM), this year reinforced by Micromentor. SMILE is meant as a networking and learning event for entrepreneurs, managers, innovators, marketeers and HR professionals from companies both large and small.
As part of its core concept, the focus of SMILE’s 25 masterclasses and workshops will be on exposing Sint Maarten’s diverse group of businesses and NGO’s to new idea, useful tools and concepts to improve themselves and .
To further underline the importance of innovation, NGO Micromentor organizes an award ceremony for the Caribbean Innovation Contest on SMILE. By means of this contest, NGO MicroMentor will provide 15 prizes up to $5,000 to support the recovering business community of Sint Maarten. Registration for the contest is easy and can be done at www.micromentor.org/blog/cic2019.
Next to its key theme Innovation, SMILE hosts a contest for its other main component sustainability too. For the event, NGO Waste 2 Work will hold a design award contest for the top three creative and innovative designs made out of reusable waste materials. More information is to be found at waste2work.com/designcompetition .
Businesses and NGO’s interested in visiting SMILE can obtain more information at 5420108 or via events@shta.com. Information will be continuously updated at www.shta.com/SMILE.
