The University of the West Indies (UWI), originally University College of the West Indies, is a public university system established to serve the higher education needs of the residents of 17 English-speaking countries and territories in the Caribbean: Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Montserrat, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, and Turks and Caicos Islands. Each country is either a member of the Commonwealth of Nations or a British Overseas Territory. The aim of the university is to help "unlock the potential for economic and cultural growth" in the West Indies, thus allowing improved regional autonomy. The university was originally instituted as an independent external college of the University of London.
Kenneth Ramchand is a Trinidad and Tobago academic and writer, who is widely respected as "arguably the most prominent living critic of Caribbean fiction". He has written extensively on many West Indian authors, including V. S. Naipaul, Earl Lovelace and Sam Selvon, as well as editing several significant cultural publications. His seminal text, The West Indian Novel and Its Background (1970), had a transformational effect on the syllabus of the University of the West Indies (UWI) and the internationalization of West Indian literature as an academic discipline.
Daren Ganga is a former Trinidadian cricketer. He was a right-handed top order batsman and part-time right-arm off spinner. He was named the 2006 West Indies Players' Association 'Test player of the year', Ganga captained the Windies' youth, A and senior teams together with Trinidad and Tobago. Ganga is also the most successful captain ever, with four titles, in West Indian List A tournaments.
Ian McDonald is a Caribbean-born poet and writer who describes himself as "Antiguan by ancestry, Trinidadian by birth, Guyanese by adoption, and West Indian by conviction." His ancestry on his father's side is Antiguan and Kittitian, and Trinidadian on his mother’s side. His only novel, The Humming-Bird Tree, first published in 1969, is considered a classic of Caribbean literature.
David Dabydeen is a Guyanese-born broadcaster, novelist, poet and academic. He was formerly Guyana's Ambassador to UNESCO from 1997 to 2010 and the youngest Member of the UNESCO Executive Board (1993–1997), elected by the General Council of all Member States of UNESCO. He was appointed Guyana's Ambassador Plenipotentiary and Extraordinaire to China, from 2010 to 2015. He is one of the longest serving diplomats in the history of Guyana, most of his work done in a voluntary unpaid capacity.
One Caribbean Media Ltd (OCM) is a vertically integrated holding company based in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. The new company was founded in December 2005, following the merger of the Caribbean Communications Network (CCN) of Trinidad and Tobago, and the Nation Corporation of Barbados. The merger of the respective conglomerates was pursued after both companies held a sizable financial stake in each other for a number of years.
Lennox Honychurch is Dominica's most noted historian and a politician. He is well known for writing 1975's The Dominica Story, the 1980s textbook series The Caribbean People, and the 1991 travel book Dominica: Isle of Adventure. Also an artist and a curator, he was largely responsible for compiling the exhibit information for The Dominica Museum in Roseau. Honychurch is the grandson of writer and politician Elma Napier.
Sampson Nanton is a journalist and television news presenter in Trinidad and Tobago. He is currently the Executive Producer, CNC3 Television.
Cyril Dabydeen is a Guyana-born Canadian writer of Indian descent. He grew up in Rose Hall sugar plantation with the sense of Indian indenture rooted in his family background. He's a cousin of the UK writer David Dabydeen.
Kei Miller is a Jamaican poet, fiction writer, essayist and blogger. He is also a professor of creative writing.
Julian Ernest Chetvynde Rogers MBE is a Caribbean broadcaster and journalist. He has worked as broadcast manager, TV and radio host and producer, publisher, trainer, lecturer, media consultant and public relations professional. Involved since the 1970s with the building of national radio stations notably in Barbados, St Kitts & Nevis, and Antigua & Barbuda, and part of "the original team set up to 'revolutionise' the media industry in Trinidad & Tobago with the rebranding of the Trinidad and Tobago Television Company (TTT) into CNMG", he has been called "the Caribbean man" and has established a reputation as one of the region's most respected media practitioners. His characteristic style as a broadcaster is to conduct biting interviews; one commentator refers to "the persistent journalistic exploits of a resurgent, sharp-witted and emphatic Julian Rogers".
The Hugh Wooding Law School (HWLS) is a law school in Trinidad and Tobago.
George Simon was a Guyanese Lokono Arawak artist and archaeologist. He was the founder and mentor of the Lokono Artists Group, a group of Lokono artists from Guyana, based primarily in Simon's hometown of St. Cuthbert's Mission. Simon was widely regarded as one of the leading Guyanese artists of his generation, and his paintings are notable for their explorations of Amerindian culture and the Guyanese environment. He was also recognized for his achievements as an educator, his efforts to develop opportunities for Amerindian artists in Guyana, and for his work as an archaeologist.
Gordon Rohlehr was a Guyana-born scholar and critic of West Indian literature, noted for his study of popular culture in the Caribbean, including oral poetry, calypso and cricket. He pioneered the academic and intellectual study of Calypso, tracing its history over several centuries, writing a landmark work entitled Calypso and Society in Pre-Independence Trinidad (1989), and is considered the world's leading authority on its development.
Adrian Augier is a St. Lucian poet and producer. His writings and productions center on life in St. Lucia and have been featured throughout the country, earning widespread acclaim.
Bevil Wooding is a Trinidadian technologist and development strategist who is the Chief Knowledge Officer at Congress WBN, a UK-registered charity with operations in over 120 countries. He is known for his work in the field of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in the Caribbean. In 2010, he was named by ICANN as one of the Trusted Community Representatives for the Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC) root. Wooding advocates for developing states and emerging economies to create policies, build infrastructure, and leverage human resource capacity for technology-enabled development. He has been described as "a visionary who believes that the Caribbean Economy can be enhanced through ICTs and Internet development.”
Liam Teague is a Trinidadian composer, arranger, and steelpan performer.
Sydney Charles Allicock was minister of Indigenous People's Affairs in Guyana from 2015-2020, and was vice-president of Guyana from 2015-2020.
Joanne C. Hillhouse is a creative writer, journalist, producer and educator from Antigua and Barbuda. Her writing encompasses novels, short stories, poetry and children's books, and she has contributed to many publications in the Caribbean region as well as internationally, among them the anthologies Pepperpot (2014) and New Daughters of Africa (2019). Hillhouse's books include the poetry collection On Becoming (2003), the novellas The Boy from Willow Bend (2003) and Dancing Nude in the Moonlight (2004), the children's books Fish Outta Water and With Grace, the novel Oh Gad! (2012), and the young adult novel Musical Youth (2014), which was runner-up for the Burt Award for Caribbean Literature. She was named by Literary Hub as one of "10 Female Caribbean Authors You Should Know". An advocate for the development of the arts in Antigua and Barbuda, she founded the Wadadli Youth Pen Prize in 2004.
Kathleen Cecile Maria Coard is a Grenadian anatomic pathologist and academic, known for her research on cardiovascular diseases, prostate cancer, and soft tissue tumors. She is the first female professor of pathology in the Caribbean and has been recognized for her role in advancing health in Jamaica and the Caribbean.
