{"id":10857,"date":"2011-01-31T11:33:58","date_gmt":"2011-01-31T16:33:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/?p=10857"},"modified":"2016-07-12T14:45:29","modified_gmt":"2016-07-12T18:45:29","slug":"haitian-entrepreneurs-are-winners-in-more-ways-than-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/2011\/01\/haitian-entrepreneurs-are-winners-in-more-ways-than-one\/","title":{"rendered":"Haitian entrepreneurs are winners in more ways than one."},"content":{"rendered":"

Although Haiti continues to struggle in the face of challenges, the entrepreneurial impulse remains strong, and with the help of mobile telecommunications operator Digicel and Florida International University (FIU), it recently got a boost.<\/p>\n

As part of a new awards program sponsored by Digicel, 24 Haitian CEOs and entrepreneurs—selected from a group of 250 applicants—traveled to FIU for a three-day program, one leg of their journey to competing for \u201c2010 Digicel Entrepreneur of the Year.\u201d At FIU they got much-needed encouragement, made important business connections and learned from academics, seasoned entrepreneurs and venture capitalists.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Denis O\u2019 Brien, chair, Digicel; Azor Petuel, COOPCAB, Food and Agriculture sector; Mathias Pierre, GaMa Consulting S.A., services sector; Digicel Entrepreneur of the Year Hans P. Garoute, Institut National pour le D\u00e9veloppement et la Promotion de la Couture (INDEPCO), industry sector; Marie Marthe Balin Paul, Coll\u00e8ge Canap\u00e9 Vert , tourism and culture sector; Duquesne Fednard, D&E Green Enterprises, environment sector; Magalie Noel Dresse, Caribbean Crafts, emerging sector; and His Excellence Jean Max Bellerive, prime minister of Haiti<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On January 10, 2011, Hans P. Garoute, founder of Institut National pour le D\u00e9veloppement et la Promotion de la Couture (INDEPCO), the largest network of micro-entrepreneurs in Haiti’s garment sector, and representing the \u201cindustry\u201d category, won the coveted title after winning in the industry sector. The other winners represented the categories of emerging, environment, food and agriculture, services, and tourism and culture.<\/p>\n

For those who created and presented the event at FIU, the experience validated the universal health of entrepreneurship.<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite the acute problems in Haiti, the business people were extremely hopeful and optimistic, which is a characteristic of entrepreneurs in any environment,\u201d said Jose de la Torre<\/strong>, professor emeritus, who orchestrated the program, which the College of Business Administration\u2019s Office of Professional and Executive Education (EPE) and the Eugenio Pino and Family Global Entrepreneurship Center organized.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Brona Cusack, Digicel public relations; Jose de la Torre and Rosangel Quintero at the Little Haiti Cultural Center during the three-day event for Haitian CEOs and entrepreneurs at FIU.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Event lays groundwork for the future.<\/em><\/p>\n

Among the many contacts de la Torre and Rosangel<\/strong> Quintero<\/strong> (PMBA \u201910), senior manager, EPE, drew upon was Francois Guillaume Jr., president of the Haitian-American Chamber of Commerce of Florida.<\/p>\n

\u201cI partnered with de la Torre in finding entrepreneurs in Miami with interesting stories to tell, explaining their success, challenges to survival and access to capital,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Guillaume also worked to connect the Haitians with members of the Haitian Diaspora in Miami and to the Chamber itself, important ongoing resources.<\/p>\n

For him and many others, the event meant more than business connections.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe stories were very moving,\u201d he said, and one attendee told de la Torre, \u201cIf anybody ever tells me Haiti will never make it, I should ask him to sit in on something like this.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Although Haiti continues to struggle in the face of challenges, the entrepreneurial impulse remains strong, and with the help of mobile telecommunications operator Digicel and Florida International University (FIU), it recently got a boost. As part of a new awards program sponsored by Digicel, 24 Haitian CEOs and entrepreneurs—selected from a group of 250 applicants—traveled […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":26987,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3513,10],"tags":[787,813,3905,2324],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10857"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10857"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10857\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26988,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10857\/revisions\/26988"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}