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After a two year hiatus due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the National Business Model Competition (NBMC) was held April 7-8 2022 and two of the four  teams entered by the University of the West Indies (UWI), placed in the top three, placing third and second,  thereby securing a combined cash prize of J$1.5 million to invest in their businesses.

Second place winner - Team Swaze App represented by Carl Duncan (Faculty of Science and Technology) and Third place – Fresh Fuel represented by Joshua Anderson (Faculty of Engineering) made their winning presentations to a panel of private-sector judges in the final round of the national competition on Friday, April 8, 2022. They competed against 12 other teams across four universities - UWI, Northern Caribbean University, University of Technology Jamaica, Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts, and College of Agriculture Science & Education. The other UWI teams which participated in the competition were ZRise and Trade Central.

To prepare for the NBMC, our teams first participated in the Vincent HoSang UWI Venture Competition and worked diligently alongside our group of mentors represented by a team of business experts from the private sector as well as attended a series of rigorous Boot Camps.

Since its inception in 2008, UWI has placed in the top three of the NBMC and in 2018, took home the first and second prizes. Before the Covid-19 pandemic, the winning teams would then go on to enter the International Business Model Competition (IBMC) which takes place in Utah, in the United States, where teams from scores of universities and business schools across the world compete for the grand cash prize of US$40,000 and the prestigious IBMC trophy. UWI teams have traditionally done well at the IBMC having won 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th place prizes in various years between 2003 – 2019 at its last staging. 

Mona School of Business and Management (MSBM) through the Vincent HoSang Entrepreneurship Programme (VHEP) has led the coordination of UWI’s successful participation in these competitions throughout the years. We remain dedicated to ensuring that the VHEP moves business ideas from mere concepts up the value chain to commercially viable entities that are market-ready, as we work towards playing a more integral role in the strengthening of the local entrepreneurial ecosystem.