Program Overview
GIST's Investment Forum | Pacific Islands was a 3-day deep dive into early-stage startup investment principles, best practices, and emerging opportunities. Top regional and U.S. experts led this Forum, guiding participants through the process of how to evaluate investment opportunities, working with early-stage innovators, and how impact investment can be a catalyst for economic growth.
These investors, many of which are already successful business leaders in their own right, saw the Investor Forum as an opportunity to learn about an area they had little firsthand experience with–investing in other people’s businesses. As such, the training focused on evaluating business plans, value propositions, scalability, and investment agreements. Participants were eager to engage with the instruction, focusing on how to actualize their vision for regional investment and bringing their shared vision of a sustainable, resilient future for the Pacific Islands to life. They particularly voiced the need for local solutions to local problems, as well as building greater resilience and autonomy for industries and shifting away from an import-first economy. These investors were eager to put their learnings into practice, and quickly began working towards building a collective investing culture that could catalyze the kinds of solutions most needed for the islands. That collective response to investing is already fueling a new network, where investors are sharing information with one another and working together to fund solutions even well after the end of the program.
“The information and technology sector cannot alone achieve change for the better-but with the right collaborations and synergies, whether it be people, technology, or processes-innovation can be developed and can contribute to meaningful societal development and advancement.
A key area that needs to be supported is leadership in driving innovation and the investment environment to support innovation through our nation’s education sector and the industry knowledge and exchanges. There needs to be more areas for access to seed capital, finance to invest in startups and entrepreneurs, innovators who are creating and or investing new ways of doing things or solving societal challenges.”
-Innovation Hub leader Priscilla Kevin (ICT Cluster Papua New Guinea)
The event featured an inspiring keynote address by Julia Arnott-Neenee, CEO & Co-Founder of Fibre Fale, who championed digital equity and the representation of Pacific peoples in the technology industry. Her journey and advocacy underscored the importance of empowering Pacific creators, builders, and founders.
