Future Caribbean's AI Buildathon, explained
A Barbados-founded contest invited teams worldwide to build AI agents for Caribbean problems. Who runs it, what winners get and where it stands now.
Future Caribbean launched a global AI competition in Barbados in May 2026, and 236 teams from 39 countries signed up to build software for Caribbean problems. The prize is US$70,000 in cash and equipment plus a pitch at the New York Stock Exchange, but the bigger promise is a route to real customers in the region.
The idea behind it is simple. The Caribbean has many small markets with different currencies, laws and regulators, so moving money, goods and paperwork across them is slow. Future Caribbean is betting that AI agents can take some of that work off people's desks.
futurecaribbean.comBuild deployable systems that strengthen how economies coordinate — from the Caribbean to the world.
Lily Dash and the people behind it
Future Caribbean was founded by Lily Dash, whom the Jamaica Observer describes as a Barbadian lawyer, entrepreneur and technologist. She is also a co-founder of ACTAI Advisors.
"Coordination across fragmented markets has been costly, complex and difficult to scale," Dash told the Observer. She argues that AI agents make it possible to work across that complexity in ways that "simply weren't possible before."
The programme launched during IDB Invest Sustainability Week in Barbados, with IDB Invest, ACTAI Global and ACTAI Advisors as founding partners (Future Caribbean impact report). Bill Tai, chairman of ACTAI Global and an early investor in Zoom and Canva, told Barbados Today that AI agents give small teams "a level of leverage that was previously unimaginable." Brian Bogart of the World Food Programme's Caribbean office said he wanted to work with teams on food security and disaster response.
What a buildathon is
A buildathon is a set period in which teams build a working product with help from mentors. Future Caribbean's version is a 21-day remote sprint, open to anyone in the world (futurecaribbean.com/about).
The "agentic AI" in the name means software that can plan steps and act on its own, such as checking records, filling in forms or sending a payment request, instead of only answering questions. Teams get free access to powerful NVIDIA H200 graphics processors from Highrise AI to run their systems, plus mentoring and weekly workshops (FAQ). Teams keep ownership of what they build.
Demand far outran the plan. Organisers expected 40 teams. By 23 August they had 236 team applications with about 450 builders, and they say they found resources to let every team build (impact report).
The ten tracks
Each team picks one of ten problem areas, which Future Caribbean calls tracks (futurecaribbean.com/about):
- The Electron Economy (energy and power grids)
- Tourism and Transportation
- Finance, Payments and MSME Capital (money for small businesses)
- Healthcare Systems and Delivery
- Climate Risk and Disaster Coordination
- Ocean Systems and Blue Economy
- Trade and Regional Commerce, including food supply chains
- The Arts
- Real Estate and Development
- An Open Track for ideas that fit nowhere else
Several of these touch businesses in Trinidad and Tobago directly, especially energy services, payments, trade and the creative industries. The test for each team is whether its product could actually be used by a utility, bank, port or ministry.
What winners get
The FAQ sets out the cash plainly: US$25,000 for first place, US$15,000 for second and US$10,000 for third (futurecaribbean.com/faq). On top of that sits US$20,000 of computer hardware from Other World Computing (OWC), which brings the headline total to US$70,000.
Other rewards listed on the About page and in the impact report include:
| Reward | Provider |
|---|---|
| Free payment gateway service for 12 months | Powertranz |
| One-week market-entry programme in Toronto | DMZ at Toronto Metropolitan University |
| Live pitch, with company names on the trading-floor screens | New York Stock Exchange |
| Flights and hotels for the NYSE trip | Bookit |
| Extra computing and AI credits | NoInfra, Shogo AI, MiniMax and others |
The NYSE hosts the pitch day, but the original press release says it is not a sponsor or financial partner (launch release).
Timeline so far
The dates have moved several times, so here is what was promised and what happened.
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 26 May 2026 | Launch at IDB Invest Sustainability Week, Barbados |
| 10 to 12 July | First Agentic AI Assembly at the IDB office in Barbados (GlobeNewswire) |
| 24 July | Main application deadline, per Silicon Caribe |
| 31 August | Final application cut-off given in the impact report |
| 1 September | Original date for naming winners |
| 18 September | Judging still under way, with 100 teams left (LinkedIn) |
The plan still calls for a Caribbean investor showcase and then the NYSE pitch in the fall. As of 11 October 2026, we could not find a public announcement of the winners or a confirmed NYSE date.
How teams are judged
Entries are scored by a volunteer network called the Founding 1000, which had 159 members by late August. Everyone is scored on the same rubric, two people verify final scores and results are frozen for 48 hours before release (futurecaribbean.com/judges). Our judges post covers who is on the panel.
What to watch
The winners announcement is the obvious next step. The more telling one comes after: whether any Caribbean bank, utility or government signs up to use what these teams built.
If you run a business with a coordination headache, such as cross-border payments, shipping paperwork or disaster planning, Future Caribbean has opened early access to an investor portal where selected investors and deployment partners can watch team demos and message founders. Our partners guide explains who is backing the programme.