I stood under the World Intellectual Property Tree massively displayed at the World Intellectual Property Organisation’s Booth during this weekend’s Trade and Investment Show and then this happened.
I’m sure your curiosity is aroused as to why I was at the WIPO booth in the first instance. Maybe some new invention’s abrewing, aligned to the likes of the most recent innovations, as the newest creative genre – the MultiMedia MicroEpic, or something else?
Or maybe it was just to track the progress over three decades of engagement, building capacity, sensitivity and understanding and lobbying for securing Caribbean IP.
Having trained cultural policy makers and practitioners to understand Intellectual Property issues as they affect creators and creative works and general IP of knowledge holders across sectors in the Caribbean, where we are now was certainly be something that interests me.
That had simultaneously involved shaping global policy from the first UN World Summit on Information Society in Tunisia when public sensitisation on issues of copyright and copyleft began their ascendancy, shaping the Commonwealth film and literary sectors, application of UNESCO’s Conventions to heritage, trade, culture and advising various institutions as the Caribbean Food and Agriculture organisations on rights regarding leveraging IP in genetic material, plant pharmaceuticals and similarly indigeneous cultural communities and the association with the National Instittute of Higher Education Research Science and Technology.
And of course as a content creator and knowledge producer the issues of copyrights and copylefts and finding avenues to make ill-fitting alien international instruments functional in our environments one can easily be overwhelmed by the incessant currents.
Then this happened
At the Trade and Investment Exhibition which was abuzzing with creative energy in the many proud displays of the fruits of innovation and labour – oh the Fudge from Development Finance (what a combination!) was delicious! I enjoyed the 3 millennium-plus game of Tik Tac Toe on an old wooden slate at the Institute of Technology’s booth where, yes, I was evenly matched, and cheekily quizzed the quizzer at the Tobago Heritage Booth before telling her how I helped shaped the Tobago Heritage Festival from its infancy so I would perhaps know all the answers in her quiz before she asked them!
But I digress! As I was quizzing the WIPO booth manager on the state of play, all that went out of my head, noughts and crosses and all, when I heard a familiar voice – blast from the past you might say.
“Ay Ay, Kris! Kris!”
As I turned, the caller turned to his friend who he introduced as Nicholas of Grandeur Design booth behind us.
‘Look Dr Kris Rampersad, the Caribbean Queen of Caribbean, the Queen of Culture!” He is beaming with pride and pulls me into a bear hug. The delicious flavours of the Development Finance Fudge started oozing out of all my pores to warm my being. I saw all manner of princes and frogs applauding, especially with the void left with the demise of Queen Lizzie!
Tic Tac Toe
There is nothing like peer appreciation to lift one’s spirits! Rawle Mitchell made my day! Unknown to him, and her, he also spared the WIPO Booth manager my interrogation on the lags in developing our creative IP and the very miniscule strides we have made in trying to navigate the murky global waters of Intellectual Property, as in moving for safeguarding Caribbean Cultural Heritage.
Game of Noughts & Crosses indeed! That would have to wait for another time as I refuse to be part of the entrenched, perpetuated and imposed failure syndrome that circulates and recycles adnaseam around us, the end results of which was well-articulated at the funeral of Professor Historian Brinsley Samaroo the week earlier – review to come shortly.
Caribbean Queen of Culture – nice ring eh
For now, although not an imperialist by any measure, I prefer to bask in my sweet Rebrand as ‘the Caribbean Queen of Culture,’ which Rawle Mitchell, the former head of the Historical Restoration Unit who stood with me as a soldier on the battlefield over time, now wears as his Facebook Profile Picture.
Thanks Rawle! You made my heart smile! and that’s all the precursor of changing tides in the fortune of Caribbean IP, Knowledge and Heritage to unfold soon!
About Dr Kris Rampersad
Dr Kris Rampersad is the Caribbean Queen of Culture, according to former Head of the Historical Restoration Unit of Trinidad and Tobago. She is a developmental specialist educator and multimedia innovator, UNESCO Trained Heritage Facilitator/Educator and Certified National Geographic Educator, Google Digital Skills ambassador, Worldpulse Digital Ambassador, Small Island Innovators’ Ambassador and Woman Techmakers’ Ambassador. She has been instrumental in devising models and means to carve a pathway for Caribbean development in reshaping international instruments and mechanisms to make them more relevant to regional needs – blending skills as a creator, educator, journalist and advocate.