Vincentian named among four 2015 Caribbean Laureates

Vincentian Herbert Samuel has been named as a 2015 Laureate for the Anthony N Sabga Caribbean Awards for Excellence, which comes with a prize of TT$500,000 and a medal.

An energy consultant and entrepreneur, Samuel has been awarded in the Entrepreneurship category, which was introduced this year, {{more}}the 10th anniversary of the awards.

The Anthony N Sabga Caribbean Awards is a Caribbean programme which seeks out and rewards outstanding nominees in Arts & Letters, Public & Civic Contribu­tions, and Science & Technology and, as of 2015, Entrepreneurship.

A release from the committee said Samuel is building a business finding innovative ways to address the problem of the efficient use of costly and finite energy resources in the face of growing demand for energy. His company, Welectricity Inc, is developing and marketing innovative solutions to reduce domestic energy consumption. Welectricity’s main product is the Welectricity web app (available at www.welectricity.com) which allows households to track, compare and reduce their electricity consumption, without the need for any additional measurement devices in the home.

Samuel is a 1982 UWI Industrial Engineering graduate who lives in St Vincent and the Grenadines. He has been involved in the energy sector for the past three decades and has been an independent sustainable energy consultant since 2007. In the early 1980s, he was St Vincent and the Grenadines’ first energy officer at the Ministry of Finance and Planning; he has worked with the St Vincent Electricity Services Ltd as an engineer and project manager; with Caribbean engineering consulting firm CEP Ltd; and with the Caribbean Electric Utility Services Corporation (CARILEC).

In his present role as a consultant, he works with regional and international clients, including the CARICOM Renewable Energy Development Programme (CREDP-GIZ) and the World Bank, where he is a member of a team building out a global network of innovation centres that empower entrepreneurs to build businesses tackling energy and climate-related problems.

The other 2015 Laureates are Dr Paloma Mohamed, poet, playwright and academic from Guyana, who received the award for Arts & Letters; Prof Suresh Narine, a bio-technologist from Guyana and Prof Patrick Hosein, a computer scientist from Trinidad and Tobago, who both received awards in Science & Technology.

The Caribbean Awards has nominating committees in each of the five major territories in the English-speaking Caribbean. These are Guyana, Jamaica, Barbados, the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States, and Trinidad and Tobago. Each committee is comprised of people versed in arts, sciences, and commerce. They nominate candidates, and a public call is made for nominations.

After the closing date for applications, the country committees review the applications and create a short list, which is given to researchers, who then do background checks on the candidates. When these are complete, the committees pick the best candidates in each category, Arts & Letters, Science & Technology, Public & Civic Contributions, and as of this year, Entrepreneurship.

The Eminent Persons Selection Panel convenes early in the year to consider the nominations of country committees. The panel deliberates and selects the best candidate in each category.

According to a release from the organizers, this year presented something of an anomaly, as though four laureates were presented, they were only from three categories, with one category (Science & Technology) having joint laureates. The Selection Panel was not convinced that any of the candidates in the Public & Civic Contributions category had yet attained the very high standards set for the award.

The Anthony N Sabga Caribbean Awards has been in existence since 2005, and was, till 2010, a biennial award, at which time it became an annual award. The prizes are worth TT $500,000 each, and each laureate receives a medal and citation at a ceremony in April.

For further information, visit www.ansacaribbeanawards.com, or on Facebook. An introductory video is available on our YouTube Channel (ANSCAFE).