About GEN in Suriname

GEN began working in Suriname in 2010 when it organized the country’s inaugural Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) campaign. During the next several years, GEN grew the campaign by developing a community of local partners. In 2012, GEN and the Women’s Business Group Foundation organized a dozen activities reaching several hundred participants. The campaign drew the participation of government officials, including the Minister of Trade and Industry, Raymond Sapoen, and the Minister of Sport and Youth Affairs, Ismanto Adna. These early editions connected a small, dispersed founder and ecosystem support base to a worldwide movement, planting the seeds for the more structured engagement that followed.

In 2018, GEN launched a Startup Huddle chapter in Paramaribo. Led by Moreno Jackson, a Surinamese engineer and entrepreneur who participated in GEN programming in Jamaica, Startup Huddle is a structured GEN program that builds local startup communities while crowdsourcing advice and support, one entrepreneur at a time. In Paramaribo, Startup Huddle has heard from entrepreneurs including Manoushka Faria of MF Creations & Consultancy and Quincy Kadosoe of Quincy’s Electronics.

That year, GEN partnered with the Caribbean Climate Innovation Center (CCIC) and the Act Now Foundation in Suriname to widen the GEW campaign. With support from the Leduc Academy, the Ministry of Economic Affairs, and the U.S. Embassy in Paramaribo, the campaign became a structured, nationally recognized program engaging Suriname’s main entrepreneurship support organizations. GEW now serves as a major driver for connecting Surinamese businesses with international markets, capital, and training resources.

In 2020, GEN introduced the Entrepreneurship World Cup (EWC) in Suriname, giving Surinamese founders a national pathway into the global pitch competition. GEN Competitions launched the EWC in 2019 to provide training, mentorship, and connections to investors while founders compete for a share of $1 million in annual prizes. In Suriname, national rounds have channeled local founders into the global competition. The Minister of Economic Affairs, Rishma Kuldipsingh, described the EWC as a catalyst for helping local founders pitch their business models to domestic and international markets.

As GEN’s activities grew into a nationwide platform, GEN established a formal affiliate — GEN Suriname — in 2024 to coordinate the community and run year-round programming. The local Board appointed Moreno Jackson to lead the affiliate with support from recognized ecosystem leaders Jalis Eduards, Eurwin Daans, Leanda Zeldenrust, Priscilla Abhilakh Missier, and Rajiv Hieralal. The affiliate works to align local stakeholders around a shared agenda while connecting Surinamese founders to global markets, capital, and training. Within months of its founding, GEN Suriname sent a five-member delegation to GEC+Puerto Rico, where as an economy facing similar challenges, they contributed to the development of GEN’s Vision 2035: An Entrepreneurial Future for Latin America and the Caribbean.

GEN Suriname also delivers Innovate Suriname, a program run in partnership with Innovate Guyana, and has spotlighted founders including Regina Wachter Wijmans of the Surivit cassava-processing cooperative, as well as Rajiv Hieralal and Diego Ameerali of Silicon Dorp. In 2025, GEN Suriname organized a large-scale national GEW campaign that reached communities in every corner of the country. Regional activities included digital upskilling programs delivered in collaboration with the Coca-Cola Foundation and FUNDES. Through these local partners, GEN Suriname and its network have extended startup support programming beyond Paramaribo to founders in smaller communities across the country.

Support for women founders has been a recurring thread in its programming. To mark International Women’s Day in March 2025, the affiliate organized an all-female edition of Startup Huddle Paramaribo, giving women entrepreneurs a platform to present their businesses and build networks. Startup Huddle has been supported by Karishma Mathoera, director of the Directorate of Entrepreneurship.

Government engagement is a consistent feature of GEN’s work in Suriname. Beyond Minister Kuldipsingh’s endorsement of the EWC, the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Entrepreneurship and Technological Innovation and the U.S. Embassy in Paramaribo have provided steady support to GEN’s programming over the years. In 2025, GEN welcomed new ministers and officials from Suriname into its wider policy community, extending the country’s participation in GEN’s global network of governments working on entrepreneurship policy.

GEN Suriname maintains relationships across the country’s public and private institutions, including the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Entrepreneurship and Technological Innovation, the Ministry of Digital Affairs, the Act Now Foundation, Leduc Business Academy, Children’s University Suriname, the Aurae Opus Foundation, and the U.S. Embassy in Paramaribo, along with founder-led ventures such as Silicon Dorp.

As GEN Suriname has widened its reach, it has positioned the country within the broader Latin American and Caribbean community that GEN has been building through initiatives such as its regional Global Entrepreneurship and Technology (GET) Platform and the Vision 2035 roadmap. GEN Suriname has also worked to develop localized tools to help founders expand across the region, such as a Caribbean Franchise Readiness Self-Assessment Tool. Building on more than a decade of engagement, GEN’s enduring goal in Suriname is to connect the country’s founders with the knowledge, networks, capital, and policy support they need to start and scale.