It was my great honour and pleasure to be invited to speak at the WICW conference in Seychelles, in Victoria, Mahé by Marie-Antoinette and Jim Friedman. The three-day event was about Creative Collaboration and building a Creative, Sustainable Economy for Seychelles. We had different speakers at our ‘Business as UNusual’ workshop and also had a hot seat session.

As the Creativity and Innovation Champion for Switzerland, creativity and innovation are close to my heart, and I love being a part of something that celebrates and promotes individual and collective creativity and collaboration as a way to both make money and enhance sustainability. This is exactly what we are talking about when we say we blend people, profits and the planet, and that if we change the way we do business, we can change the world. We will be celebrating from the 10th of June in Switzerland with INSPIRATHON.

Jim is the White Family Professor of creativity and entrepreneurship at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, in the United States and chief steward of World Creativity, Innovation Week and World Creativity Innovation Day. I had the pleasure and honour of interviewing Jim for the upcoming issue of Figured OUT magazine on 3 April, where he talked about how we are all born creative, but we have our creativity educated out of us.

He also talked about the different types of creativity and how we acquire the Voice of Judgement that stifles us while keeping us ‘safe,’ the importance of celebrating failures, and gave us three top tips for building your creativity muscles.

You can watch the full interview here. It has some lovely creative moments. And you will be able to read the article of the highlights in the Figured OUT magazine in due course.

Why immersing matters

It would have been easy to stay in one of the big commercial tourist hotels. We stayed in local accommodation on Praslin, outside the commercial tourist areas, because we wanted to understand how the local people live. We were immersing ourselves in their lives because to help them, first, we need to know how they live and work. We didn’t want to turn up and tell the local people what to do. It’s vital to understand the struggles in the life and day-to-day activities of those people.

So, instead of going to an all-inclusive hotel, we rented a local place. When we arrived, there was no cook, no food supply. The first thing we had to do as a family of six was to go shopping. It turned out to be more like hunting.

The things we take for granted

We have noticed several striking differences, both big and small. Things that we take for granted and assume are universal turn out to be very different in other countries and cultures. Here are just a few examples.

Car rental quirks

We rented a car, which came with no child seats, no explanation about what kind of car it was–a hybrid–and no petrol. Unlike in Europe, where you get the tank full and have to fill it before you return it, you get it empty and return it with whatever you have left. This provides a small amount of hidden profit for the rental agencies in the fuel returned and removed before the next rental.

No fresh food for the locals

There were only small local shops with lots of rice and food that I didn’t know what to do with. We left the first shop with bread rolls and went to another shop. We have a three-year-old, so we needed some milk. But there are no cows in Seychelles, so there is a lot of powdered milk and a lot imported.

Surprisingly, this extends to fresh produce. We imagined there would be lots of fresh fruits and vegetables here. But Christian, a local tour boat operator, said there is not enough fruit and veg for the local people because everything goes to the hotels. Seychelles was without tourism for two years, which has impacted, and prices in the shops increased a lot. And now the tourists are back, but the prices haven’t gone back down, something Christian and other locals attribute to the ‘Indian shops’ profiteering.

Coffee is a luxury

We found canned strawberries but no coffee. Nescafe is the only coffee; there is no ‘real’ coffee.

When we went to buy Internet access, Maria, the lady in the shop, told us that people couldn’t afford coffee here. ‘It’s very expensive,’ she said, ‘when I want to treat myself, I buy the capsules, and that’s my treat.’ Some things we take for granted, like fresh milk and coffee, either aren’t available or are too expensive for most people.  These are some of the struggles the locals are dealing with.

Life on credit

We finally found a little local shop, and we picked our fruits and vegetables, including bananas and papaya bought green that we would have to wait for them to ripen. When we went to the counter, we discovered we could not pay with a card. We said, ‘Oh no, we have no money,’ expecting to have to go away and come back when we had found a cash machine. Anette, the shop owner, said, ‘It’s okay, you can pay me next time.’

We were delighted and grateful and rushed back the next day with the money and took a picture with her. She presented us with local products and Takamaka, a local rum. I shared how surprised we were that the lady in the shop had let us pay later with Maria, and she told us it’s normal here because everyone lives on credit and pays when they get their wages. It’s the local culture and habit. 

Internet issues

We were trying to upload images to our team and quickly discovered that the internet in Seychelles is limited. The connection is poor and used by everyone, and there is not enough bandwidth to upload pictures, let alone video. So we went to the internet shop to rent internet, as advised by the local lady. It cost us around 100 euros for five gigs of data.

It’s super expensive to run an online business there. Access to the internet sounds simple and easy for us in Europe and the west, but it’s not practical or accessible in Seychelles. Something we would not have known when we went to run the workshop if we had stayed in a tourist hotel. This is the art of immersing at work. To help someone, first, you have to understand how they live and work. The things we learned informed our workshop and the things we focused on.

The Sustainable Seychelles Conference

At the conference, we saw speakers like Jim Friedman, Peter Sinon, the ex Seychelles High Commissioner to South Africa and Namibia, and current Chairman of Central Common Cold Storage in the Indian Ocean. We also heard from business owners like Benjamin Port-Louis, co-founder of Seaweed Seychelles and 2 other businesses. We have also spent time with local business owners outside of the conference. These are some of their stories.

Christian, Angel Tour Praslin island

Christian owns Angel Tour on Praslin Island, where he offers boat tours, fishing excursions, and diving. He told us that this is high season, when they are very busy, but in June it will be quieter. “We do as much as we can to create a little extra in case something else happens,” he says.

He told us that things were improving after Covid, but rising fuel prices are forcing him to consider raising his rates, but that, “Competition is severe. A slight price adjustment might mean fewer clients.”

Christian had only just bought his boat when the pandemic hit and hadn’t even had any clients. So he has spent a year maintaining it with no income. “Thankfully, the government and banks helped with the mortgage. We only had to cover the interest, which made it possible. During Covid, they use public money to support businesses to stay afloat. Now the reserves are low.”

Of all the people we spoke with, Christian was perhaps the most fearful for the future. “People are observing good businesses here,” he tells us, “When a company is profitable, it can easily be copied and scaled up to offer a better price. Then the original business can die because of that.” This also we heard here in Mahe – more about all the insides in next newsletter

He also believes that boat licensing has become too lax, with too many being handed out, affecting the market, and that he is in a vulnerable position because everything has to be imported. “if anything goes wrong with the boat engine, for instance, and we cannot repair it, or we need a spare part, we need to order it. It might mean two weeks or more out of business with no income.”

“The Israelian tourists are a little like Italian, they like group activities, ” he tells us,  “but the price also has to be much lower. Now the Europeans are back, more than before Covid, maybe they missed beaches and want to see paradise island now. Good because the Russians were also very popular here.” – direct impact of the war on the tourists and inflation

Another big issue here is that everything is imported. Very little is grown or produced in Seychelles. All prices are very high. In addition, if anything goes wrong with the boat engine for instance and we cannot repair or we need a spare part. “We need to order it. It might mean 2 weeks or more out of business with no income”

Christian is serving his clients amazingly, we all were super happy with the experience we received. Full of stories and rich in hidden gold. We will definitely recommend to anyone to go for this trip. We were also lucky enough to see family of dolphins.

Yes it is still possible

Despite this, Christian’s business is the same as before covid, unlike Hannie, another local entrepreneur we met.

The reinvention of Indian Ocean Pearls 

As curious as we are, we decided to visit the local Paran Museum. Unfortunately, when we got there, it was closed. So, after a brief time spent exploring, we met a lady sitting outside of another building who explained it was closed due to complete or extended illnesses.

‘However,’ she said, ‘stop.’

She picked up the phone and called the lady. They spoke in Creole, then she told us to go home, and the lady would come to us. 

We went home, and sure enough, a little later, the lady arrived. First, she put her card reader on the table. So, it was apparent this was a business meeting, not just a visit. That might make some people feel uncomfortable, but as a business owner, I truly and fully understand that business does not exist without sales and the customer buying in, so we chose to be open. We listened to the story and asked questions. 

A 5-year gamble on perfection

Did you know that it takes five years and the unique skills of a Japanese guy to produce one pearl, and only 10% of the pearls are the perfect shape and get the top price? Some might ask why Japanese, yes interesting question indeed?

Next to the island Curios, there is a small plantation. They pick oysters from the sea, and a Japanese guy who comes to the island specifically for the job plants the starter seed in the oyster. It is a very delicate and precarious process that the whole production process depends on. 

Then, after two years, all the oysters are taken out and checked before being returned to the sea for another three years. So, the entire process takes five years. Usually, they plant about 5,000 oysters.

But only ten percent of the pearls come out in a perfectly round shape. And because the market will only pay the top price for those round pearls, the odd-shaped pearls are not considered precious.

I found her story remarkably interesting, and the imperfect-shaped pearls intrigued me. So, I bought a pair of earrings that are not the usual pearls you see. They are just as beautiful as the round pearls the market prizes so much, and they make a striking conversation starter.  

I loved Hennie’s reinvention story, both from the perspective of using natural resources that are otherwise undervalued to make her jewellery and from sitting in the museum waiting for clients to packing her bags and becoming a traveling salesperson.

By sharing her stories and selling her products to tourists in different places, she is keeping her business going and growing it. 

Revival and Reinvention

Benjamin Port-Louis, co-founder of Seaweed Seychelles shared with us at the conference the story of how a conversation with his father sparked a new business. He was on a regular visit to the beach, which gets covered with seaweed, and the tourists complain a lot about it.

“I was wondering out loud if there was anything we could do with it and my father said, ‘you know fifty years ago, the islanders used to compost it for a year and use it to grow things.’ Because it is very hard to grow anything on the islands and seaweed makes a great fertiliser.”

From that conversation grew Seaweed Seychelles, which has produced two extracts and a soil conditioner from local seaweed, thus using a natural resource otherwise considered a nuisance and turning into a valuable revenue stream.

Sustainable Seychelles

It’s this kind of innovation and entrepreneurial spirit that Xavier Estico – Chief Executive Officer at Seychelles National Institute for Science, Technology and Innovation (NISTI) wants to encourage.

Seychelles is insular, he says, and “This is perpetual. We will always be insular. Can we change the vulnerability of Seychelles? We have to live with it.” Seychelles faces challenges from climate change to the macroeconomic climate, none of which it can change. If Seychelles is to survive, he says, “We should be probably the most creative and the most innovative nation on this planet.”

The creativity that sparks a movement must be accompanied by policy changes to create sustainable innovative systems, he argues, adding that he has worked closely with the Seychelles Chamber of Commerce and Industry and with the incubator project for five years. “Everybody wants to build a different incubator. There is one Seychelles and everybody wants an incubator. How many incubators will we have? Why don’t we join hands and have one incubator that works? And then we can see that it works. Then we can see if we can. Each one of us wants to run with a piece of the cake we are baking. The oven will be hot. No cake will be baked. So we need to work together.”

Another issue he sees is the “arbitragers” who scout incubators and poach talent, connecting them to investors, Silicon Valley, MIT, and other places where business angels are and the environment is more conducive to supporting startups. Seychelles, he says, needs an innovation hub, where young innovators can go and get support and have their “blind spots” brought to light.

Otherwise, he says “we will soon have deep recorders without jobs. The job market cannot absorb them. So there must be a way where their knowledge and skills and creative mind can make them create value for themselves and for others.”

Xavier Estico wants to see synergetic relationships between government, NGOs, the universities and trade associations but reminds us that sustainability is vital.

“The world around us is volatile,” he says, in a message that holds true for every country and business owner. “The world around us is uncertain. The world around us is complex. The world around us is ambiguous. Did we know COVID 19 would come in2020? No. Did we know Russia would attack Ukraine? No. What will be next? We don’t know.”

We are all exposed to these external factors every day. Xavier Estico’s advice to the conference applies to us all.

“We should be the most creative, the most innovative nations because we are vulnerable, we are insular, we are faced with volatility, we are faced with uncertainties. We are faced with ambiguity. We are complex. We are closing the gap. We know success is there for us. … We need the evidence from the system … Then we can analyze the weakness and strengths of our system. And we also have a reporting system … Find gaps and close the gaps … see how we can strengthen the system and how we can measure it periodically … don’t retreat into silos … Silos will always exist. We are human beings. We are territorial. We like to defend our kingdom. But the silos should be put into a connected interface so that we can see the mutual benefit of working together.”

Conference Outcomes

In closing the conference, after acknowledging and thanking the organisers and previous presenters and speakers, Mr Peter Sinon referred to the comparative study of creativity in children and adults. He said it reminded him of the day an older and certainly wiser colleague advised him to “never lose the child in you” and that it all made sense after that revelation. 

Like most things, he said, the will and ability to create and innovate are also subject to the environment one finds oneself operating and living in. Conditions can either be conducive and enabling or restrictive and full of red tape. 

On that note, Mr Sinon referred to the presentation of Mr Estico, the Head of the former National Institute of Science Technology & Innovation (NISTI), that the new government has relegated to be a Department within a Ministry. He did not think that the new setting was optimal for encouraging both creativity & innovation. 

Mr Sinon thanked Ms Marie-Antoinette for inviting him to participate. The deliberations were very relevant and way above his expectations. He described “the astuteness and wide experience of the main guest speaker and presenter Mrs Simonet” as “inspiring.”

The Business as Unusual workshop 

Our Workshop takes attendees through the Me-to-We Framework in a hands-on co-creation experience. Since most people operate from a place of ME, thinking first about what they want and how they can get it, and selling ideas outward, we begin by looking at core strengths and setting ourselves up for success.

Through hands-on work on a real project, we move beyond Me thinking to consider THEM. By thinking about who the client is and what they want, we introduce a strategy businesses integrate into the client ecosystem. Then we teach how to mitigate risk and co-create value with your clients by inviting them into your world to become part of your US team and become your “sustomers” (sustainable customers).

Finally, the WE portion of the event shows how to build a mutually supportive ecosystem that consistently produces irresistible offers, and how to iterate for reliable results.

In Seychelles, we encountered a powerful crowd with people from diverse industries including education, students, tax-advise, organic agriculture, carpentry, UN advocacy, politics, hospitality, fishing, conservation and coral restoration, construction, recycling, local farming, car rental, fashion, pet trading, yoga teaching, sewing, business development, mentorship and coaching.

The event saw some powerful presentations, which we touched on last week, powerful conversations and an exchange of ideas, which we will discuss more next week when I share the workshop outcomes.

As an attendee, Peter Sinon said, ‘The event presented opportunities to network and raise awareness on a number of critical issues. It touched both the personal and wider setting within which we operate and through the sharing of experiences one leaves the workshop hungry of more.’ 

This week, I want to share with you some of the collected insight from the workshop and our time in Seychelles.

Insights

The following insights are based on observations and conversations and represent the perceptions of the people we encountered during our visit. They are not negative judgments. In fact, as you will see next week when we talk about the opportunities and outcomes of the workshop, there is huge potential for the country.

A culture of hospitality 

We had the opportunity to get to know many local people during our stay outside of the main tourist areas. We came to understand something of the local character through talking to local business owners, being invited into the homes of local people and sharing real food cooked the way they do for themselves.

As a result, we know there is a strong culture of hospitality and accommodation. At the grassroots level, there is a strong community with myriad opportunities in this amazing country.

A belief in poor customer service

Despite this, we often heard variations on the theme ”We are not good at customer service.” when talking to business owners and others. I’m sharing here a few striking sentences and insights I have learned from this experience.

No sense of urgency

”We live in Paradise.” We heard this many times from the local people. A few speakers at the conference repeated this sentiment, mentioning that people are not hungry, or used to thriving. The country is beautiful, with beautiful beaches and mountains for hiking and rich biodiversity.

Local people know that tourists will come. They don’t need to do anything to attract tourists, because the tourists will come to paradise

Poor timekeeping

We know from psychology that there is often a gap between knowing and doing, and saying and doing. In Seychelles, a relaxed attitude to timekeeping prevails.

For example, the Conference was due to start at 9 am. And yet few were on time. People started to drift in from around 10 am. When I arrived there were only a few people there. Coming from a country where time is taken very seriously, and the stated time is the starting time, not five minutes on either side, this came as a bit of a surprise. But from a cultural perspective, there was no sense of urgency to start on time. I was told, ”No worries, it’s social. We are having a coffee and we will start later.”

We said we would start the second day at 10 am to give people more time.  Instead of arriving at the same time to start on time at 10 am, people came later, and we started later. 

This relaxed approach to time is catching. On the third day, we were running late, and driving in a hurry to get to the conference, when I said ”it’s okay no one will be there.” 

If I did that in a different country it could be more challenging. Different countries have different cultures, and therefore different expectations. That also means there is a huge opportunity for those who show up when they say they will and do what they say they will.

Employment paradox 

This relaxed attitude to integrity expands beyond timekeeping, though, and creates an employment paradox. The local newspaper had sixteen pages, and 14 of them were positions vacant.

Business owners told us, ”We love local people but we don’t want to hire them,” or,”We don’t want to do business with them”

Some of the reasons business owners said they don’t want to hire local people were that they don’t show up on time, they don’t do what they said they will do, and they also take what doesn’t belong to them.

We were told there were so many job ads in the newspaper because businesses only want to hire experts, creating a situation where there are plenty of people searching for plenty of jobs, but no one wants to hire the available workforce.

One local business owner shared with me that during the pandemic when everyone was at home, he had little difficulty hiring staff for a delivery company. However, when the tourist industry reopened, and people returned to employment, he found it very difficult to find workers. One advert attracted fifty applicants, but only one showed up for the interview.

An unreliable workforce

Fear of immigration 

There is also rising fear that the Indian population are having more and more influence on the economy of the country. The fact is there are many Indian immigrants working in different roles on the island.

Export mindset  

Businesses are attracted by export more than to fulfilling the needs of Seychelles. There is a lot of future vision around exporting products and services, even though the main challenges are about sustaining the island economy. Products and services are not being designed for the local people.

Import mindset 

Strikingly, most shops also focus on selling imported products, which also creates inflation and increases the price of those products. It’s hard to find local products.

During the workshop, I asked, ”Do you also import coconut oil?” They do. The most abundant resource on the island is also imported, as is tea.

Diggin into this, we discovered a belief that local food would be more expensive, and that all local products would be more expensive than imports. In reality, those imports are very expensive, so there is a huge opportunity there.

Visibility 

A side-effect of heavy imports is that there is no visibility of Seychelles tradition or local products. So many tourists will come and go without ever being exposed to that amazing culture. There’s a separation between tourists and local people.

Promoting own culture 

One of the reasons for this is a lack of promotion of the local culture. We stayed in several places during our visit, moving four or five times, so we experienced various places, people and services. In none of the places did we find a travel guide. There was no promotion for local businesses or things to do. We had to ask for everything to learn more about what is happening in the culture and the tradition of the country

In one shop, I noticed a lot of big brands’ products and not many local products. One shelf was entirely taken up with the same product apart from three locally produced products at one end. So, I did a little bit of redesign and reshuffling on the shelf and created a full line of all the local products and just one line of the import. 

There is a massive opportunity for promoting sustainability in the mindset of promoting your own people and seeing the value in them.

Competition over collaboration 

One of the reasons this isn’t happening is the culture of competition over collaboration. Local people don’t necessarily want to do business with each other. There’s a prevalent fear of having one’s ideas stolen because copying and undercutting other businesses is common. People are reluctant to share ideas but keep them secret.

Behind-the-scenes business

Another aspect of the competition culture is that business is happening behind the scenes in one-on-one meetings. It’s a small country made up of islands where everyone knows everyone. From what we observed, it’s standard practice to take each other’s clients the same way they take each other’s ideas.

Lack of support ecosystem

This lack of trust and transparency in the local economy means there’s no ecosystem of businesses supporting each other, sharing clients and growing together. Because when you learn that someone is taking away your clients it does not create a good business relationship. There is a massive opportunity for businesses that choose to create connections.

The blame game

There’s a blame game between business and government. Entrepreneurs say government favours foreign investors and immigrants, so the same idea proposed by local and foreign businesses would be awarded to foreign interests.

On the other hand, the government says they do a lot for the entrepreneurs: “We organise training/workshops with big-budget, quality trainers. We organise meetings and we pay for everything. We spend lots of time promoting that event. However, at the event, entrepreneurs don’t show up. They say they will show up, they signup but then they say it is not aligned they never come back to us.” So, the issue of integrity and timekeeping rears its head again.

Inaccessible banking

There is more trust in the banks because the banks supported people and postponed mortgage payments during Corona. Unfortunately, some business owners shared with us how difficult it was for them to open even a simple bank account and the inaccessibility of business banking. 

Those are the main issues we uncovered during our visit. 

Now, let’s balance some of the issues with their present opportunities.

Assessing the Opportunities for Sustainable Seychelles

How much time does it take to act? How challenging is it to change? As you will see, some issues are more difficult to overcome than others, but there are many opportunities which could be acted on and implemented quickly and cheaply.

Use of Natural Resources

The country has tremendous opportunities. There are natural resources like an abundance of coconut trees freely growing everywhere. Creating more businesses around that and maximising them would be relatively easy.

For example, we asked why restaurants use imported paper cups and not coconut shells to create unique value? This idea has been picked up and developed through different forms, which I will share with you later.

Seaweed is another naturally abundant resource. Seaweed is collected from the beaches and exported to a different island. It’s growing somewhere, which is another excellent opportunity. We met Benjamin, who founded his own seaweed business for organic farming. However, the collection process is critical.

The country has a growing economy with people who laugh, love the country, and want to do much good. It’s a popular tourist destination but disorganised, and finding things is more a matter of luck. There’s an excellent opportunity to create an experience for tourists that guides them from one point to another, so it’s like a journey. People can visit different businesses and learn other stories about them.

Promotion of Local Businesses

Another great opportunity is to promote local products and boost the economy. Last week, we touched on the import mindset and showed how a simple shelf redesign could make local products more accessible.

The most significant opportunity is in creating and building self-supporting business communities. A network of businesses and collaboration between government, entrepreneurs and banks is underway to construct an ECOsystem of entrepreneurs, banks and government working together to support each other and create value. This will be complicated without the trust and integrity of the people.

However, some entrepreneurs have built multiple businesses, proving that you can learn all the rules and regulations when you want to make it work.

Opportunities in challenges

There are challenges that people just put up with, or haven’t yet figured out, which means there’s a massive opportunity for anyone with a workable solution in these areas.

For example, costly internet/data makes operating internationally or doing online businesses difficult. There is no competition in this area, so everyone got used to it. Another challenge is that humidity drains energy with time.

There is also a massive plastic waste issue. Recycling is in its infancy. There is no collection except for a few bins in the airport or hotels. People do not separate wastes. They have a single container for glass, metal, plastic and organic debris. For instance, a tiny percentage is exported to recycling facilities abroad to Swiss companies that are happy to import plastic waste. But the majority of the trash is just sent to landfills. In those landfills, abysmal management and processes are being implemented. Because management doesn’t know how to handle waste properly, they use fires to reduce the volume.

Walking around, opportunities are everywhere.  We were very impressed by some entrepreneurs who created two or three companies and products and services, trying different things to see what works.

So the great with all those challenges it’s a great feeling of really outstanding opportunities and not used yet for example and selling out the plastic which is being generated recycling and reusing the bottles reusing the coconut and some of the great options laying into data business and another great option is in maximising local economy through local product and services and create that network of supporting each other.

Enterprising Seychelles

And the people are there. Here are some examples of wonderfully unique and creative people we met.

At the business breakfast, we met someone who offered to support a colleague in Kenya who had lost his business during the war and again due to the pandemic by giving him a phone to run his business.

We met a cook and singer walking on the beach and asking tourists if they wanted to have dinner at his house. He is sharing a tradition and a glimpse of authentic island life. That’s a fantastic way of doing business.

There is a vast need for services, but not always the people to do the work. Questions remain that require further investigation. How might we create the ecosystem? How can we increase productivity, integrity and trust among people and between the people and government? These are deeper, longer-term issues.

However, many significant advances can be made in the interim. For example, our workshop produced four prototypes of real business opportunities:

Business as Unusual Workshop Outcomes

Our Business as Unusual takes attendees through the Design Thinking process while working on real projects, and this one was no exception. The workshop was split into four groups, which explored the issues in client interviews over the day, sketched many ideas, and developed and refined prototypes.

Harmony’s Recycling Triangle

The Harmony team created a prototype recycled bottle in the shape of a triangle to represent the earth and the sand it is made from locally. The idea is to encourage reusing the bottles instead of disposable plastic bottles. The bottles would initially be sold with a range of local fruit juices and taken to a spice manufacturer, thus creating a triangle of supporting businesses. The story of the company values and products will be printed on the bottle or accessible from a bar code.

Cappuccino’s Coconut packaging

The Cappuccino team came up with an idea for robust packaging for local honey made out of coconut fibre, which is an abundant island resource. Some materials are researched, but they could also be used to make coffee cups and other more durable packaging. This would have the dual benefits of simultaneously reducing reliance on imports and eliminating plastic waste.

Shells’ Fruits

The Shells team developed a concept using the food waste, mainly fruits, generated by the tourist industry. They would collect the fruits and clean and sort them before using them to make a range of fruit products, including fruit jellies, leathers, and chewable vitamin tablets made in stars, fruits and other fun shapes and marketed as children’s snacks. They were considering recycling plastic to make sturdy, reusable packaging.

Corals Coconut Art

The Corals team looked at multiple ways to use every part of the coconut, from coconut oil in sun cream, supplements, and husks and fibres. They created art and objects highlighting the tree’s versatility and economy.

These kinds of art installations would not only support artists but could be used as landmarks on the “Tourist Trail” we discussed earlier.

After the workshop, Sinon said, “The event presented opportunities to network and raise awareness on several critical issues. It touched both the personal and wider setting within which we operate, and through the sharing of experiences, one leaves the workshop hungry for more.”

The Sustainable Seychelles Conference brought people together from all backgrounds and specialities to consider the issues facing Seychelles. The workshop made some profound first steps on businesses that could potentially bring the sustainable Seychelles dream much closer to reality. We look forward to furthering developments in this area and will report on them as they happen.