Creating economic empowerment in barbados (May 2022)

ACTAI Global held an inaugural gathering in Barbados for their community to collaborate with the Government of Barbados and connect with local tech entrepreneurs and ocean conservation efforts.

The gathering brings world changing tech and social impact leaders to the area to take action, empower the local community and discuss ways to preserve and restore the ocean sustainably.  The conference also highlighted the newest technologies disrupting traditional economic models such as DAOs, NFTs, cryptocurrency and the metaverse and how these technologies will change communities globally.  One of the panels featured some of the community's women entrepreneurs who believe in “Community and purpose as catalysts for growth”.

Grammy-nominated celebrity singer Shontelle joined and performed at the event to share her experience using NFTs in the music business. International world champion kiteboarder Andre Phillip from Antigua also joined the group.

The acronym ACTAI stands for Athletes, Conservationists, Technologists, Artists, and Innovators.  ACTAI has a dual mission, to embrace “Environmental Conservation” and catalyze “Economic Empowerment via Entrepreneurship.”  

Bill Tai, Co-Founder and Chairman of ACTAI Global, believes building market value these days is far more leveraged by 'building communities' vs just 'building products' which resonates with the vision of Prime Minister Mia Mottley who is known for caring and looking out for her people.

Prime Minister Mia Mottley who has made a stand to call on the world’s governments, private sector leaders and billionaires to step up and make the commitments urgently required to end extreme poverty, has been in discussions to bring this gathering to Barbados since October 2020 when she and Bill Tai were on a joint panel for the United Nations Joint SDG Fund. 

Commenting on this event, Prime Minister Mia Mottley shared “We’re delighted to host this global gathering of entrepreneurs and conservationists in Barbados. Communication and collaborative action are key elements towards building a better future. Barbados seeks to be a hub for people and companies intent on ‘doing well whilst doing good’, encouraging people at the cutting edge of technological advancement and capital to sustainably fast-track the change we need to improve the quality of human life, the global economy and of course the health of our planet.”

“We’re honoured that Prime Minister Mia Mottley invited the ACTAI Global community to meet with her, entrepreneurs, innovators and conservationists in Barbados,” says ACTAI Global Chairman and legendary venture capitalist Bill Tai, “We’re excited to learn from each other and explore ways to collaborate.”

Our founder and CEO Lisa Andrews hosted a panel with Bill Tai, Amanda Terry, Evan Rappaport, Jared Christopherson exploring technology trends with NFT’s, DAO’s, AI and the opportunity that communities have to make a difference. “It’s an honour to have these discussions with the calibre of people that attend ACTAI gatherings. We are in such a unique position to leverage technology that can change the lives of so many people. A country like Barbados with less than 300,000 people is so uniquely positioned to support changes to break free of the poverty cycle as well as lead the way in fundamentally changing the economic model for climate impact.”