Valrie Grant is the founder and Managing Director of GeoTechVision and Executive Chairman of Marlie Technology Park Ltd. As an Entrepreneur, she has received several recognitions and awards including most recently, The Leader Worth Following Award from Leadercast Kingston, 2018 in association with Jamaica Chamber of Commerce.
Show Notes:
In this current age, geospatial technology comprises a broad range of tools including map making, Geographical Information Systems software for data analysis, remote sensing imagery Global Position Systems, and Internet mapping applications such as Google Earth and satellites for precise location and positioning.
Operating in a male dominated space within the sphere of geospatial technology, Founder and Managing Director of GeoTechVision, Valrie Grant, is a shining example for entrepreneurs within the region particularly, women entrepreneurs. As she blazes the trail in the area of what we can dub the 4th industrial revolution, the first woman in the region to operate within this space is not comfortable with just being the ‘first’. She is hell bent on making her indelible mark.
In a podcast interview for The Entrepreneurial You, Valrie said geospatial technology is “all about location, being an element of everything that we do…most of the problems that we will ever face have a geographical component…it is a cross-cutting piece of technology or solutions affecting many areas of our lives without us knowing it”.
A Geologist by training, Valrie accidentally got involved in geospatial technologies by the advice of a friend. Since then she has been in the industry for about 18 years now.
Her latest project is the Marlie Technology Park. She describes this as that which is shaping a smarter future. The well-manicured, gated 68-acre property is well-manicured and smacked in Old Harbour surrounded by the beautiful mountain range. “An innovative new force in the Caribbean, a true tech park in every sense of the word. I have a vision to transform the park into a world class environmentally responsible tech park that will drive regional growth and innovation”, Valrie says.
With partners including Google and IBM, the Marlie Technology Park will be retrofitted to have, among other things, 3,000 Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) seats; 2,000 seat Conference Hall; light manufacturing including assembling Geo-tablets in Jamaica; a Boutique hotel, Tech Adventure Park featuring Virtual and Augmented Reality innovations; Women in Tech Centre.
Listen to this episode of The Entrepreneurial you podcast to learn more about geospatial technology.
