An acquaintance of mine today was asking about renowned Caribbean scientist and inventors. Her son is doing a school project in which he has to prepare a profile of two Caribbean scientists, one Barbadian and one from another country, whose research or innovation has made a valuable contribution to society. It was really quite sad how few we were able to think of. Cardinal Warde, Oliver Headley... And then we were drawing blanks.
Dismayed by my own ignorance, I did a web-search and turned up a site dedicated specifically to Caribbean Icons in Science, Technology and Innovation. A project of the Trinidad and Tobago National Institute of Higher Education, Research, Science and Technology and the Caribbean Council for Science and Technology, also located in T&T, caribbean-icons.org is intended to “highlight some of the outstanding sons and daughters of our region, who have taken their place among the leading luminaries in the world of science”.
So I learned something today about Caribbean contributions to the world of science and technology; now if someone asks me about outstanding Caribbean scientists and inventors, I can school ‘em on the achievements of folk like Jamaican aerospace engineer Robert Rashford, St. Lucian nematologist Edsel Edmunds, Guyanese soil scientist Nazeer Ahmad, and Trinidadian electrical engineer Andre Cropper.
This is actually a very popular research topic first year secondary students. The Reference Dept at the Public Library in Coleridge Street had compiled a fairly substantial list of Barbadian and other Caribbean scientists as a result. With the Public Library closed (and for so long) all this information and much more ‘indigenous’ information is rendered useless.
Blibrarian · November 04, 2007
Thanks for letting me know this, Blibrarian. It seems like ages that my friends and I have been asking when the public library will be re-opened. It’s been more than a year now, hasn’t it?
titilayo · November 08, 2007