Dragonfly Media Curacao

Last tuesday we were one of the speakers at the lunch seminar “myths, facts and vision concerning the internet on Curacao” for the Curacao Women’s Network. We took care of the final presentation before lunch about the (near) future of the internet on Curacao. You can see the slides of the presentation (in Dutch) here.

In related news: one of the things we said at the presentation was that there are hardly any cross-medial websites on Curacao. The same day we said this, we heard about a new news site for young people in Curacao and Holland. This site uses a cross-medial approach to inform people about what’s happening on Curacao and appears to be pretty interesting.

The reporters are interns from Fontys Hogeschool in Tilburg (The Netherlands) and the website is set up with the help of Radio Netherlands Worldwide and local radio station Dolfijn FM. When the interns leave again to Holland their jobs are taken over by new interns from the same school so it should remain fresh and forward thinking.

On September 23rd, 2008 the Curacao Women’s Network will launch their lunch seminar about the myths, facts and vision concerning the internet on Curacao (link is to Dutch website).

The last couple of years there have been many changes in the way the businesses on Curacao handle their representation on the internet. We’re seeing all these changes up close and personal of course and we think that Curacao is on the right track. However, we’re definitely not there yet. The train has just started and is getting up to speed, but is still a long way from the last station (assuming there is one).

Some of the reasons for this late adoption of the internet on Curacao are the late implementation of high speed internet, the difficulty with getting an internet merchant bank account at the local banks (for online shopping) and, most of all, the general lack of knowledge about how the internet can help a business succeed.

With this seminar the Curacao Women’s Network aims to defuse some of the myths concerning the internet, give people the facts about how the internet is helping other people and businesses and to present some of the things that are possible with the help of the internet.

For this last part of the pitch (the ‘vision’ part) they have asked us to do a presentation about what is possible online and, more specifically, what might be reality on Curacao in the near future. Regretfully we only have about 15 minutes for our presentation (we could fill a few hours on this subject), but in the time we have we want to talk as much as possible about what we think is reachable within a few years. With a bit of luck we can set some wheels in motion and help at least one person with his/her business.

An extra reason to come: the seminar will be held in the auditorium of the Bank of the Netherlands Antilles so we will need to shave (Oscar and Joost that is) and we will have to wear a suit and tie. Not a lot of people get to see us like this….