Two Saint Lucian startups among top five in Caribbean STEM challenge

Two Saint Lucian startups have emerged as two of the five highest-scoring business plans at the inaugural Caribbean SEED (STEM Engine for Economic Development) Summit in Barbados.

Medial Health Inc. and Rifbid, both led by Saint Lucian entrepreneurs, were among 15 companies that presented business plans during the Caribbean STEM Startup Challenge held as part of the summit from June 25 to 27.

Stephen Felix and Olayinka Sarayi represented Medial Health. Its project, “From Paper to Intelligent Care”, is an artificial intelligence-powered health information system designed for Caribbean health systems.

Rifbid was represented by Shergaun Roserie and Keeghan Patrick, both Saint Lucian graduates of the Student Programme for Innovation in Science and Engineering (SPISE). Their project focuses on agentic verification infrastructure for public procurement finance, using artificial intelligence to allow lenders, factors and financial institutions to verify critical records directly from source portals.

The other three highest-scoring business plans were Dharach Pte Ltd in Barbados, Groundtruth Caribbean of Trinidad and Tobago, and NexUS from Guyana.

A total of 28 business plans were received for the Caribbean STEM Startup Challenge, with 15 selected for presentation to the judges.

The business plans were assessed on criteria including value proposition, global competitiveness, technical and work-plan feasibility, go-to-market strategy, intellectual property status and financing strategy.

The summit was organised by the Caribbean Science Foundation in collaboration with Barbados’ Ministry of Industry, Innovation, Science and Technology. It brought together Caribbean nationals and global collaborators working on applications of STEM, STEM financing, research and STEM education reform.

The Government of Barbados is exploring investment possibilities for some of the 15 companies, while other potential investors interested in connecting with the entrepreneurs have been invited to contact the Caribbean Science Foundation.

Interim Executive Director of the Caribbean Science Foundation, Professor Cardinal Warde, said he was optimistic that the summits would help entrepreneurs develop globally competitive technology and technology-enabled companies that could be transformative for the region.

The next Caribbean SEED Summit is scheduled for the third week of May 2027.