NOW, AI firm launch free business programme for women

Up to 35 women will receive free training in using artificial intelligence to develop viable businesses under a new programme launched by the National Organisation of Women (NOW) and an AI capability firm.

At a press conference on Monday at the Ministry of People Empowerment in Warrens, NOW president Melissa Savoury-Gittens introduced the programme, Build a Business with AI, in partnership with Amplifi AI. 

“It’s about economic empowerment. We often tell women to dream bigger. We tell them to become entrepreneurs, to create opportunities, to become financially independent, and to build something of their own. But encouragement alone is not empowerment.”

Savoury-Gittens explained that the programme is intended to give women of all ages practical tools to help them participate in a changing economy.

“So economic empowerment for now means access. It means skills. It means knowledge. It means opportunity. And increasingly it means ensuring that women understand and have access to technology that is changing how we work, how we communicate and how we do business.”

The free programme will take place over three Saturdays – September 12, 19 and 26 – at Solidarity House, with 35 places available.

Participants will be guided from developing a business idea through to building a business. Those who complete the programme will receive a certificate of completion.

Amplifi AI Inc chief executive Janelle Germain said the initiative is designed to show participants how AI can be incorporated into a structured business process, rather than simply used to create individual pieces of content.

“Knowing 10 tools is not a business,” she said.

“This programme is one structured workflow: idea to execution with artificial intelligence running through every step of it.”

Participants would first be taught the fundamentals of developing a viable business before AI tools are introduced, said Germain. 

“On the first Saturday, before any business touches a tool, participants work out who their customer actually is, whether the customer exists in the numbers they believe, and what the business would have to charge to make money.”

She stressed that AI should complement, rather than replace, knowledge and judgment.

“This technology makes foundational knowledge more important, not less,” Germain said. “You cannot direct artificial intelligence well if you do not understand the subject itself. You cannot judge whether what comes back to you is correct or safe to put your name on it.”

The programme will also help participants determine whether their business ideas have genuine revenue potential, regardless of whether they are starting with an existing business or from scratch, she added.

“One of the things that entrepreneurs, when they start and they have a business idea, that they sometimes are misguided by is being able to understand the true potential of their market,m.  

“We show them how to decipher whether there’s revenue potential, whether the business can actually work.”

Participants without a business idea would also be accommodated, with the programme helping them identify opportunities based on their available resources, Germain said. 

“If the person has, they have no idea what they want to do, based on whether they have $0 or $5 000 or $500, we’re able to give them the prompts, give them the knowledge that they can test and see what idea can I actually launch in Barbados.”

NOW president Savoury-Gittens said the initiative grew out of an earlier programme aimed at young people, which generated requests for a similar opportunity to be made available to a wider group.

“We would have had early in the year a programme for young people, an introduction to digital marketing and to social media.  

“And coming out of that, persons would have been reaching out to us asking us, you know, ‘So this is for the young people, what’s for everybody else?’”

She said NOW wanted to ensure the opportunity was not limited to young people, but also reached women interested in learning how to use AI to develop their own ideas.

The programme is being offered at no cost to participants through a partnership involving NOW, Amplifi AI Inc and other supporters. Germain said the value of delivering the initiative as a paid programme would be more than $20 000.

“The gap we’re seeing is that small businesses, micro-entrepreneurs, informal economy don’t have the access or the know-how to be able to implement AI in their business,” Germain said.

The programme will culminate in a live pitch on October 10, when the three strongest businesses will return to present their ideas before a panel and audience.

“I want that they have a business that they can launch tomorrow,” she said. “But ultimately, that even after they go through the program and they launch the business, that Barbados, that the other businesses, other entities, even the ministries, can support them in sustaining the business.”

She is also calling on “partners to help these founders land advertising and media support so a business gets seen; financing, even small amounts, so somebody can buy their first stock or their first equipment; mentorship in the months ahead when the hard part starts; distribution, shelf space, a first contract”. 

Germain said the first cohort is a pilot, and that future programmes could be considered if demand grows.

Applications are open on Amplifi AI Inc’s website and close a week on Wednesday. Germain encouraged women and young people with business ideas to apply, saying the programme is intended to give them the structure needed to turn those ideas into viable businesses.

(LE)