Students from Trinidad and Tobago, Ecuador and Venezuela Win #IdeasForTheFuture Competition

The “Ideas for the Future” competition, organized by CAF—development bank of Latin America—, with the support of the central banks and think tanks of Ibero-America and the Caribbean, announced the regional winners of its third edition. They are Tyler Alexander, from Trinidad and Tobago’s University of the West Indies, winner of the Guillermo Perry Award; Melissa Miranda, from the University of the Americas in Ecuador, second place winner; and Reysbel Ramos, from Venezuela’s Andrés Bello Catholic University, third place winner.

For CAF executive president Sergio Díaz Granados, “the #IdeasForTheFuture competition seeks to give a stage to the voices, ideas and proposals from the Ibero-American youth, especially in the current context, in which we need to add new voices and ideas to accelerate recovery. In this connection, young university students have demonstrated through their essays to be aligned with their social and economic needs, and to have good ideas to transform the reality of their countries.”

The winning essay was “Cooperative Enterprises and Community-Based Tourism as the Gateway to Social and Economic Revitalisation in the Caribbean in the Aftermath of COVID-19,” by Tyler Alexander, from Trinidad and Tobago, which seeks to explore the difficulties and opportunities for sustainable development and economic revival of the Caribbean islands after COVID-19. The essay cites tourism as the economic pillar of the Caribbean, which must be in sync with the local economy.

It also describes cooperative financial institutions—highly popular in the Caribbean—, which can potentially mitigate socio-economic problems if promoted in other areas. In the author’s view, if we work in these areas, we will be able to find solutions to reduce inequality, empower marginalized groups and guide the Caribbean towards post-pandemic development.

The other two winning essays are: “The challenge of promoting education in Latin America and the Caribbean after COVID-19: The role of technology and digitalization” by Melissa Miranda from Ecuador; and “Labor Markets in Latin America: Towards the construction of a sustainable model through digital platforms,” by Reysbel Ramos from Venezuela.

The 3rd edition of the “Ideas for the Future” university essay competition received 4,667 entries and 340 essays from the 19 member countries of CAF. This year’s edition focused on opportunities to build a sustainable recovery, thus helping the region to overcome the health, economic and social crisis that it is experiencing as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.