Business View Caribbean - August/September 2018

64 65 Maria Phillip,Vice President of Client Services at Cayman Enterprise City Cayman Enterprise City Campus Rendering admits. “There are some, and we do all we can to help connect qualified people with opportunities within Cayman’s Zones, but one of the issues that an emerging industry faces is that there is a shortage of qualified people for that industry; local people have not trained or acquired the qualifications because the jobs didn’t exist. So, one of our missions is to help develop that critical mass of technically qualified people.” “So, we have our Enterprise Cayman Ini- tiative,” Kirkconnell continues. “We get into the schools on a regular basis and speak with young kids about careers in technol- ogy; we update them on what’s happening in the Special Economic Zones and describe the careers that are becoming available in the Cayman Islands. If they want to live and work in the Cayman Islands, one of the de- cisions they have historically faced was the need to study something that’s either rele- CAYMAN ENTERPRISE CITY International Delegates at the IMPACT conference on internet marketing vant to the financial services industry or the tourism industry. Our project is making a whole new set of ca- reers available to people so that they can still choose to live and work in the Cayman Islands, but also pursue the career of their dreams.” CEC also has a longstanding working partnership with the University College of the Cayman Is- lands. “For many years, they had what they called the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Math) Ambassador Program, which was organized for students that were interested in pursuing careers in STEM disciplines,” Kirkconnell reports. “We got involved by arranging for some of our clients to speak to students about what they do, and how they ended up where they are today with a career in technology.We’ve also participat- ed in their annual summer camp, again, designed to make young Caymanians aware of emerging careers in STEM disciplines.We’re very proud of our partnership with UCCI and look forward to developing it further in the years ahead.” CEC is also in the process of launching the Cay- man Code Academy. “This academy is for people who are interested in becoming programmers or coders,” says Kirkconnell. “They will be able to attend a vocational course here on the island that will teach them how to code with a view to en- abling them to take entry level jobs in program- ming with companies in and outside of Cayman’s Zones. And the code academy will also offer advanced courses for those who have completed the first phase so they can continue their trainign. We are a licensee of a company called Code Fel- lows, which is a well-recognized coding academy based in the northwest U.S.We have access to their curriculum and to the industry intelligence that they have. As they update their curriculum, ours is updated, as well.We felt it was important not to try to build something from scratch, but to actually tap into something that has a track record of success in training people for careers in coding.