The POWER Identity

A Caribbean-centric Strategy for

Riding the Global Wealth Curve

 

Perry C. Douglas

 

PROLOGUE

The Science Technology and

Innovation (STI) Path

 

Science, Technology, and Innovation (STI) have always been the development bedrock of civilization, from agricultural revolutions to industrial revolutions, STI application has always led to economic growth.  Today, in the early stages of the 5^th Industrial Revolution (5IR), the efficiencies being created through STI remain fundamentally similar to revolutions of the past, the only difference this time, and a gigantic one, is the enormity, scale, and transformative nature those efficiencies can deliver.  

 

The utilization of science and technology to increase efficiency, productivity, and output, is fundamental to economics.  Relatively speaking we all have access to the same technology, however, innovation is the exponential growth function, the transcending variable.

 

“If the microprocessor was the defining technology of the late twentieth century, artificial intelligence and machine learning were, by every conceivable measure, poised to become signature advancements of the twenty-first.  The most important function of our lives, not to mention the future success of Salesforce and its customers, would depend on our ability to swim with these invisible currents.  We didn’t want to be late to the revolution.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Marc Benioff, Founder and CEO, Salesforce        

 

As the world continues to innovate at breakneck speed, the Caribbean can’t be late to the revolution. Data science/AI is revolutionizing the world, our region must be a part of that in a big way, aligning itself to the transformative power of innovation, and knowledge-based ecosystems that are pushing humanity forward. A smarter world means a more competitive world, but without applied intelligence and innovation in your business environment, and country, we will lose.  

 

As Benioff points out:

 

“If you don’t value innovation as a foundational principle, you will never achieve it.

Successful companies continuously innovate, period”

 

The chart below puts the various industrial revolutions of the past, in context.

 

The 4IR advanced operationalized utility functions with transformative capacity, but advancements have also brought about challenges, increasing digital inequality precipitates income inequality.  The 5IR has changed the very nature of business and society, people’s roles in it, and the increased challenges technology can create for humanity, along with the tremendous good it does.  Therefore, the opportunity is, that those same technology advancements and innovations can also be applied to solving complex societal problems.

For the Caribbean, imagination and boldness are required, but that boldness and imagination must be guided by values, a culture of intertwining business and social responsibility as one enterprising pursuit.

 

Technology is fundamentally a part of our everyday lives. Data science, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), are all being utilized in our consumerism culture. Technology is helping businesses personalize the consumer experience, intelligent machines are giving people what they want when they want it, and how they want to transact.  Technology can also create new consumer demand and opportunities for dynamic enterprise growth—technology dictates much of our society—how we work and play, it drives our human existence. 

 

Once again, we turn to billionaire CEO Marc Benioff, of Salesforce, a 230-billion-dollar company, who sums it up like this:

 

“Technology will never stop evolving.  In the years to come, machine learning and artificial intelligence will probably make or break your business.”

 

Therefore, success in the future for the Caribbean will centre on how we stretch our imaginations and push the boundaries of applied intelligence-led growth—how we execute on imagination.

 

For those who get it, the 5IR is an advantage for the creative people in or society, the “creative class”, the 4IR started the process of diminishing the economic value of the technical people, increasingly, a lot of technical and operational work can now be performed better by AI—even past reliable professions like engineering, architecture, medicine.  AI can simply do the job better and at a fraction of the cost. Cardiologists are relying on AI more and more to identify complex patterns in diagnosing heart problems, diseases, with a level of certainty unachievable by humans.  AI is lessening the value and need for Radiologists for example; the human eye is no match for the massive pattern recognition capacity of AI.  

 

Nevertheless, be heartened, technology is still under the control of humans, what we humans decide to do with technology will ultimately determine the state of our own existence, in the future.  For the Caribbean region, the critical analysis is simple…unless there is an aggressive embrace and adaptation of advanced technology and innovation, identified through clear leadership, with long-term objectives, the entire region will fall even further behind the rest of the world; dramatically!  Irrelevance and abject poverty will be more probable in the future if we don’t move hyper-aggressively with the times.

 

STI/4IR/5IR continues to transform our universe, so economies that do not set themselves up on the STI path, or trajectory, will suffer. Henceforth, the only viable path for the Caribbean region is to build a bold strategy, clear and inclusive, underpinned by a knowledge-based ecosystem economy.  Otherwise, there is no chance!  The region will not be able to compete globally, remaining dependent and disrespected, while the rest of the world moves forward in prosperity.

 

The Scientific Approach

 

Taking a scientific overview helps us cut through the noise, the ego-driven, error-filled judgments humans often irrationally pursue.  In the case of the Caribbean, this has been one of the most significant reasons why the region remains dramatically behind—lack of proper, qualified, and non-corrupt leadership.  Therefore, we must move to a factual, data-driven approach, avoiding the hindrance and distraction of noise and constant error.

 

The STI approach also contributes to social and ecological development; knowledge helps to create a greater understanding of the many impacts, for example, of climate change, income inequality. Technologies are most effective in helping to solve complex problems, as it focuses on the data, not intuition and emotion.  Developing policies around science will help to avoid excessive noise and error-filled human episodes and academic discourse, which stagnates development.   

 

At the same time, we must work to ensure that STI-led growth is inclusive—fostering progressive data-driven policies that promote inclusive socioeconomically scientific approaches, to enterprise-led growth.  In other words, sustainable economic development cannot succeed, particularly in the new economy, without inclusive STI.  Relevant growth agendas supported by inclusive-STI must become the new normal.

 

As described earlier, the historical evidence does tell us that counties that can engage in STI—knowledge-based ecosystems of development and growth ecosystems, will enjoy significantly more productivity, wealth, and power, and be able to shape their future existence.  

 

Defining development

 

This book is not intended for the academic audience, who in my view, and experience, are more interested in academic discourse on ‘development’ than the actual pursuit of effective real-world solutions.  They pursue agendas that are based on ego, instant gratification, within the peer review universe—essentially writing for each other’s academic consumption.  Again, these theories and experiments have led to negative outcomes in the post-colonial era.  

 

Authentic development means the pursuit of wealth outcomes through entrepreneurial-enterprising pursuits.  A long-term view and agenda must be taken towards building an educated society, with an entrepreneurial-culture lean towards the creation of a strong, creative, and innovative middle-class.

 

This is the tried-and-true, bottom-up enterprise-focused approach, which does not seek to engage in any noise that can led to errors, or elaborate academic development models and discourse, which serves no practical purpose.

 

Development, for our purposes, means applying knowledge, relevant to the time and place, towards the efficient utilization of STI in the methods of production and output for the socioeconomic benefit, and well-being of any given society.

 

This new paradigm is not new at all, it has been used for millennia, consistently proven as the best growth model throughout time—every culture and society has utilized entrepreneurship and STI, as the core growth function and underpinning in a society.  However, for Black populations of the Caribbean, (keeping in mind the enduring legacy of slavery and colonialism) executing such a simple strategy in the post-colonial era has been elusive.  It is now time to flip the script, utilizing our understanding of universal entrepreneurship-culture and knowledge-based ecosystems.  It’s time to get on with it, time to design our own future, and stop having others designing it for us.  

 

The Caribbean must be pushed towards critical thinking, logic, actionable agendas, tried-and-true methods of enterprise and wealth creation, focused on the pursuit of intergenerational family wealth creation.

 

 

Building A Culture of Entrepreneurship

 

For the Caribbean to pull itself out from under the reality of being the perpetual disadvantage class, where development agencies continue to run economic growth experiments on, we need to become doers.  We need people with courage that are unsatisfied with the socioeconomic status quo.  People who care about societal outcomes, willing to align their own economic interests with those of the collective. We require virtuous people, the courageous ones, lions not hyenas, no fakers, no convenient virtue-signalling bandwagon jumpers.  People instead, who are ready to put their skin in the game, those with backbone, who can’t be thrown off track by the noise or the madness of the crowd.  Those who can focus on solving real societal problems, sticking up for the truth, speaking with applied intelligence, clarity, honesty, regardless of the discomfort it may cause others—this is true virtue and the type of leadership necessary from all stakeholders in the region.

 

Risk-taking is the highest form of virtue, so, if you say you want to help the Caribbean people, stop with the western driven top-down ‘development’ discourse nonsense, fancy intellectual academic models, which lead to distortion.  Become an entrepreneur, build something.

 

The ‘development’ solutions western academics write about constantly, are from their perspective, which is biased, error-filled, and can’t be taken to authentically advance the region.  Scholars are not, and have not, lived the lives of the local folks, so what makes them qualified to tell us what to do? These academics are noisemakers who essentially report on events in history, often offer ignorant, arrogant, hierarchical, white supremacy-based solutions for the South to act upon.  Western academics and development institutions alike have no skin in the game.  They will never have to suffer the errors and consequences of their academic papers and development models. 

 

 

Stop Complaining and Help Ourselves

 

As for the Caribbean people, stop acting like sheep, waiting for the Shepherd to come and guide you, mindset change is required now.  No western nation or international aid agency is going to come and save you, so stop waiting in abstract ambivalence, and get moving with our own self-created growth agenda.  We need to build a doer culture, waiting helplessly by the side of the road for a ride to nowhere is not a strategy.  Instead, begin with helping yourself, start something, start a business, no business is ever too small...every business creates economic activity locally.  Entrepreneurship is the bedrock of growing societies; it increases economic activity and stands as a testament to human ability.  

 

A cursory reading of Adam Smith’s, The Wealth of Nations, makes the point that the true measure of a nation’s wealth is not the size of the holdings of an affluent few but rather the prosperity of the people. Smith declares that it is a matter of simple “equity” and fairness that the people should have equal access to opportunity.  So, when we think about the pursuit of “equity” today, what is required first, is an entrepreneurship mindset, and developing culture, that can confront the many systemic level barriers to economic growth and prosperity.  We must get this entrepreneurial footing down, we must start businesses, put ourselves on the line, take a risk, have courage.

 

As author Nassim Nicholas Taled so plainly put it in his best-selling book, “Skin In The Game”

 

“Courage is the only virtue you cannot fake.”   

 

So, the region needs virtuous risk-takers, not vicious-circle creators. 

 

When businesses begin to thrive, society begins to thrive, people benefit from dignified, non-charitable, employment opportunities.  Enterprise creates well-paying skilled jobs that people can be proud about. They can educate their kids, have healthy diets, get good healthcare, join the middle-class, ultimately creating more opportunities and intergenerational wealth outcomes. 

 

We need people who don’t move in fear, those that see the possibilities, not the boundaries.  STI-led economic activity changes economies for the better, enhances social conditions.  However, in the end, a nation's power position in the global economy, influence and political power, inherently stems from its economic might, productivity and output trajectory—wealth!  So, we must create an entrepreneurial culture, our future relevance as a people depends on it—we need more entrepreneurs, more lions, who are not afraid to roar.