The Tribune

The Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC) will close its small business month with today’s first annual small business conference.

Titled BTC InKnowVation, powerful real-world business solutions, it will feature a number of local and international speakers and serve as a networking opportunity for small business customers to share insights and best practices.

Conference speakers include Island Luck chief executive, Sebas Bastian; music industry professional, Darryl Payne; celebrity hairstylist, Derreck J; digital marketing expert, Rasheed Girvan; president of the American Advertising Federation for the Caribbean region, Arnold Foote; founder of the Nichole Makeup Brush Line, Toria Nicole Fanakos; reality show personality and businesswoman, Tanya Sam; and chief executive of iSuccess Consulting, T Renee Smith.

Andre Knowles, BTC’s director of B2B, said: “We are proud to present the BTC InKnowVation Conference to our local small business community. This is just one of the ways we are continuing to add value for our customers, and to demonstrate the importance of this ever-growing segment.

“We are looking forward to networking with our customers and collaborating with them to design solutions that meet the needs of their businesses. We encourage anyone that has a small business, or is interested in starting one, to attend this conference. We promise that you won’t be disappointed.”

Globally more than 6.5m new small businesses are started each year. Industries such as technology, health and energy are the main breeding grounds. Small business customers has evolved over the years and in many instances, they are employees with full-time job commitments, developing a commercial strategy as a secondary stream of income.

BTC has held a number of activities over the past month, including the Share our Space initiative that has allowed small businesses - including those affected by Hurricane Dorian - to use the company’s Mall at Marathon flagship store to showcase its products and services.

“Our teams wanted to find a way to help our small business customers that had been displaced by the storm. We came up with what we thought was a great initiative to provide office space for some of the small businesses, and to provide them with exposure via the BTC footprint. We are currently seeking ways to expand this offer,” Mr Knowles said.

The BTC InKnowVation conference is free to the public, and will be held in the Grand Hyatt Baha Mar ballroom.