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Samantha Sheoprashad, is a well-known entrepreneur, multi-award-winning youth activist, and tech-ecosystem developer who hails from Enterprise, East Coast, Demerara.
Samantha is the co-founder of Trifinity Solutions – A Digital Marketing and Tech Agency. She also served as the Facebook Developer Circle: Georgetown lead.
Her childhood is that of a country girl who grew up in a male-dominated environment. She attended the Enterprise Nursery and Primary schools, then Annandale Secondary and the University of Guyana. At the University of Guyana, Samantha pursued a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science. Further she pursued Entrepreneurship and Innovation via the Global Entrepreneurship Program at the University of Massachusetts Lowell in 2016.
Samantha’s life experiences have shaped her into the young woman she is today. Over the years she has travelled across the Globe, speaking at local and international events, studying, sharing her knowledge, and volunteering.
Samantha was presented with the Queen’s Young Leaders Award in 2017 for her work to help disadvantaged communities.
She served as the President of the Enterprise Youth Development Group, which runs several initiatives including computer classes, providing hampers to low income families and running suicide prevention programs. Through the Queen’s Young Leaders program she was allowed to pursue the Leading Change at the University of Cambridge.
Samantha believes her purpose is to serve her country, make a difference in the lives of others, and help people live a more productive and meaningful life.
Sheoprashad suffered depression, which led her to become suicidal. Nonetheless, with counselling and therapy she recovered and used her life story to advocate, create awareness and provide opportunities to help people with mental illnesses.
She created a video campaign highlighting young people’s perspectives of mental health in Guyana, self-care, counselling and therapy.
Samantha launched the Stay Alive And Econaire apps. She also ran other mental health projects, such as Mental health Matters.
As a tech-savvy person, she created tech-based solutions to solve various problems viz high unemployment rate, mental health, and high failure in Mathematics.
In 2019, she collaborated with Miss World- Guyana, Ms. Joylyn Conway to host a STEM camp at the Berbice High School. The main focus was educating and empowering girls from the Berbice High School (BHS) and the New Amsterdam Technical Institute(NATI), where they emphasised about technology and the opportunities currently available to Guyana and the wider Caribbean. The duo further explained about STEM and its importance to girls and women in our country and even the world at large.
Last July Sheoprashad launched her inaugural “Project Code-HER” workshop, through her company, Trifinity Solutions. This workshop geared toward increasing access to computer coding education among young women in Guyana.
The three-day workshop “Project Code-HER”, seeks to improve training, skill development, and access to digital education in Guyana for women and girls between the ages of 12-25. The workshop was supported by the Commonwealth of Learning (COL).
“It was an opportunity for young girls and women to be exposed to a field that is not traditionally seen as a field for women like most tech fields, where women are underrepresented,” Samantha added.
Samantha has many titles and accolades attached to her name. She is a Caricom Youth Ambassador, Global Peace Ambassador – Guyana, and a Commonwealth Youth Representative.
She was a recipient of the Institute of Caribbean Studies(ICS) and the Ignite Caribbean 30 Under 30 Awards in 2019.
Over the past 18 years, Samantha has been making huge contributions whilst empowering youths in Guyana, the Caribbean, and across the Globe. Through Econaire, she offers various IT/Computer Science-based training courses. The app (Econaire) focuses on youth unemployment, youth living in poverty, at-risk youth and issues facing young people in general.
She attended Facebook’s F8 Summit and North America’s Developer Lead Summit which aimed at providing developers and businesses with resources to bring the world together through innovation and creativity.
After returning from the Summit, Sheopradhsd launched Developer Circle : Georgetown (Dev-C: Georgetown), with over 150 Guyanese youths and became the lead. Through the Circle she provided extensive training in programming, Augmented and Virtual Reality. Samantha also copped a few awards from Facebook while she served as the Developer Circle Lead for Guyana.
Mr. Murtadha Al-Tameemi, an Iraqi born, famous software engineer from Facebook (Now Meta) attended and provided CV and tech interview guidance to over 30 Guyanese youths at the University of Guyana. This event was hosted by Samantha and team.
Sheoprashad partnered with the University of Guyana, Berbice Campus Students’ society and trained youths about the importance of technology within the 21st century.
In 2002, Samantha received the National Star Camper Award. In 2013 & 2014, she was awarded the youth worker award.
In 2016, the young innovator got the chance to showcase her software building and IT skills during her first international participation at the Global Entrepreneur and Innovations programme in Boston at the University of Massachusetts, where her innovation for depression placed 3rd in a Pitch Competition.
In her Computer Science cap, Sheoprashad dedicated her master’s funding to implement award-winning apps Stay Alive and Eco-naire. “Both of which have leveraged local impact to force policymakers to rethink mental health and unemployment issues,” Samantha stated.
Samantha stated, “Every failure arms you with real change; real lessons and real possibilities?? Think of the word ‘Impossible’ as two words: I’m possible. It isn’t about how hard you got hit but it’s about how hard you got hit but still moving forward. I would encourage finding a balance between what you want to do and what you can afford to do will be much easier. You will either be released from an unwanted and expensive commitment or discover a new way to adjust your lifestyle. It’s all about recognising opportunity when it arrives and is flexible enough to make the most of things. Understand that a small and unpleasant adjustment now will yield satisfying and enriching benefits for years to come. Self-care is important!”
“I would say to young people in my field to never give up. Stress and challenges are inevitable. Just find opportunities to learn and grow from it all. Forge and develop your own destiny no matter what the world says about you. You can achieve almost anything you want to – if you want to?? The great thing about words is they are powerful. The problem with words is they are powerful. If you don’t like a word, change it. If you don’t like a thought – change it. If you fail – try again,” Samantha said.
