Screen shot from SiliconCaribe.com website.
Jamaican tech entrepreneur Ingrid Riley believes it's high time the Caribbean's bloggers emerged into the sunlight and made their voices heard in the online world.
She and her award-winning Caribbean tech media and events brand SiliconCaribe are launching Caribbean Bloggers Week 2016 (#CBW2016) from December 5-10, 2016. The theme of the first CBW is “The Power of Digital Influence,” and the main goal is to provide an outlet for Caribbean bloggers and bloggers of Caribbean descent to be recognized. They are out there, and they do have voices.
SiliconCaribe Editor-in-Chief and founder of Caribbean Bloggers Week Ingrid Riley. (Screenshot from SiliconCaribe.com)
Ninety per cent of the action will be online, where emerging and professional digital influencers will be profiled and interviewed.
The week-long event will also organize blogger meetups hosted by bloggers of Caribbean descent. Odessa Chambers, owner of the lifestyle and entertainment blog oaccessjamaica.com will host the meetup in Kingston, Jamaica. Port of Spain's Mel Gabriel, who is a writer, editor and owner of CaribbeanLookBook.com, will be the Trinidadian host. The New York meetup will be hosted by Mikelah Rose, founder of StyleandVibes.com. In London, the meetup host will be Ursula Barzey, founder of the Caribbean travel and luxury blog CaribbeanandCo.com.
The CBW might just be the ideal opportunity for Caribbean writers and commentators to step out of the shadows of their Facebook threads, hashtags and retweets, and start making a greater impact in the global online dialogue.
4 comments
I think this could potentially be a ground-breaking initiative, and I am sorry I won’t be able to attend because of previous commitments I have in Barbados, but I would love to see this go regional and global to include the diaspora! Kudos and I hope to ‘meet’ some of the other Caribbean bloggers at some point.
Agree! Would love to meet other Caribbean bloggers – either Caribbean descent or living in the Caribbean!
It’s true, but maybe there will be many more opportunities :-)
How exciting! Love this idea and wish I could be there for the event. Great to see bloggers in the Caribbean changing the face of media and the narrative in the region.