Caribbean Entrepreneur Ken Shipley, owner of www.SearchAntigua.com and winner of
Antigua and Barbuda’s Entrepreneurship and Young Pioneer Award recently attended TedxIrie, a part of the famous Ted Lecture series in Jamaica. Shipley found the experience very engaging, “What I mostly took away from this event was that the Caribbean has a lot of out of the box thinkers. And even though many in our society walk on the conservative line there are those among us who have alternate views on how our society can progress especially in this digital age.”

During this time Shipley also had the opportunity to be interviewed by Nex Generation magazine about his thoughts on Ecommerce in the Caribbean. Through the interview Shipley conveyed his dismay about how difficult it was for small businesses to launch themselves into the e-commerce world. He cited many obstacles that are currently preventing the Caribbean from moving forward in this field. Shipley highlighted that the un readiness of our banking sector to process micro payments and the grey listing from large companies overseas due to money laundering stipulations are the hurdles to overcome. He also made mention of the regular problems faced by Caribbean islands on a whole such as shipping to other countries and the under representation of smaller entities on the internet such as vendors and artisans. Shipley however stated that the Caribbean has made some advancement in this field especially in the tourism, mobile banking and education/medical industries.