The winner of the Entrepreneurship World Cup Caribbean Regional Finals is SmartBiotic, an early-stage health sector business in Martinique. The company is working to improve the effectiveness of treatments and reduce antibiotic resistance.
Antimicrobial resistance leads to improper antibiotic prescription and an improper antibiotic prescription amplifies the antimicrobial resistance. This vicious circle kills one person every six seconds, according to the company. Dr. Mathieu Raad and his team developed SmartBiotic as a solution to this problem. SmartBiotic provides local information in real time to help physicians choose the best antimicrobial to prescribe in order to prevent treatment failures and reduce antimicrobial consumption (and therefore resistance). SmartBiotic uses local, clinician, biological and epidemiological information to provide physicians with the information needed to personalize the antimicrobial prescription.
"The Caribbean ecosystem is truly a fertile ground for innovation and high-quality startups due to our local specificities, advantages and challenges," said Dr. Raad. "It's really an honor to be chosen to represent the region [in the Entrepreneurship World Cup]."
In preparation for the EWC Global Finals, Dr. Raad will participate in the EWC Group Stage starting on mid-December. Here he will engage with the EWC Accelerates team to get ready for a bootcamp on February 3-5, 2023, where he will compete for a chance to make it to the EWC 100 and participate at the Global Finals in March, 2023 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
SmartBiotic emerged victorious from a pool of over 900 contestants who applied from 18 countries throughout the Caribbean region. Each applicant received access to free virtual training services and up to $25,000 in perks to help them take their venture to the next level.
The EWC Caribbean National Organizer for Guadeloupe and Martinique was IPEOS, led by Mrs. Betty Fausta and her team.
The second place winner was Ms. Eugenie Addison, of Senzi.ME, a Jamaican growth-stage health care business. Senzi.ME focuses on a Class 1 medical device that detect specific pathogens, bacteria, and gases such as Type A influenza virus, Legionella bacteria, formaldehyde, volatile organic compounds, carbon monoxide gas, carbon dioxide gas, nitrogen dioxide gas, sulfur dioxide gas, and oxygen gas within 145 square feet.
“Being the second-place winner of the Entrepreneurship World Cup Caribbean now, I am really feeling overwhelmed as my motto says that 'winners are dreamers that never give up, the sky is the limit," said Addison.
The EWC Caribbean National Organizer for Jamaica was Mr. Dwayne Gutzmer, CEO, Institute of Law and Economics and his team.
The third-place winner was Mrs. Jodie Dangleben, of Jaydee’s Naturals of Dominica. Jaydee’s Naturals is a business founded and owned by Jodie Dublin-Dangleben in Dominica, the Nature Isle of the Caribbean, producing natural and organic hair, skin and household products. The company has a line of natural vegan lipsticks and cacao lip balms. They also produce body masks and scrubs, shampoos, conditioners, hair growth oils and elixirs, hair and body butters and other products made from local herbs and oils sourced from farmers and other businesses on island.
The company is the perfect matchmaker; marrying indigenous Caribbean herbal and remedial culture with modern cosmetic formulation to create unique, high quality and effective products made from local and sustainably sourced ingredients. They will soon be launching their package free line of products soon. Jaydee’s Naturals retails worldwide through www.jaydeesnaturals.com.
"I am really thrilled to be the winner of the Dominican leg of the EWC and third place winner in this amazing network," said Dangleben. "For me, it is not just about winning but about pushing myself to do my best as an entrepreneur and to actively seek opportunities to create connections and linkages to ensure my products are of the highest standards. To make it to the final round would be a dream come true. There is much that I still can do to scale up Jaydees Naturals as demand has grown exponentially; from expanding my workspace to buying equipment and inventory and even research and development for coming up with new formulas and macerations, using our natural Dominican indigenous remedial herbal culture."
Both entrepreneurs will join Dr. Raad of SmartBiotic to participate in EWC Group Stage starting in Mid-December. They will engage with the EWC Accelerates team to get ready for the bootcamp on February 3-5, 2023, where they will compete for a chance to make it to the EWC 100 and participate at the Global Finals in March, 2023 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
The EWC Caribbean National Organizer for Dominica was COESL.
Judges for the competition were:
- Dr. Dionne Miranda – Managing Director and partner - Chamberlain Consulting Ltd. Belize.
- Ms. Shirley Billot - Kadalys. Martinique. EWC 2021 Caribbean regional winner
- Dr. Winsome Leslie - President and CEO of DevSolutions Consulting. USA.
- Mr. Amit Uttamchandani – Techpreneur - Barbados