A look at 2018

I give God thanks and praise for seeing me through another year. I am proud of what I have achieved for 2018. I cannot deny that I could have done better. Nevertheless, I am grateful. These are some of the many things that happened in 2018.

Personal

Early this year, I concluded that I am burning out. Working a day job and spending long hours on Sonover's project and operation, I hardly had time for myself, family and friends. So I've decided to put an early notice to migrate from the Grenada Hotel & Tourism Association (GHTA) after 7 years of service to go full-time into Sonover. It was a hard decision to make but so far it panning out.

I am thankful to the Board of Directors and Member of the GHTA for all they have done for me. I am so happy that they have allowed me to work 16 hours a week. At least this would help me cover for some personal experiences.

Launched a side project

This is one of my proudest moment this year. Together with my wife Sallisha, we've launched Jolly Leapers! An online baby store for Grenadians.

I will write on the process on how we get this rolling in another blog. So look out for it.

I enjoyed working on the project together. Every moment we spent working on this brought us even closer.

So far, the business is going reasonably okay with a slow pickup. Customers are pleased with the service.

Meanwhile in Sonover

This year our team decided to focus a lot more on our product. We are soon to make available our Internet of Things (IoT) platform in 2019. We are rebuilding Battleboard and relaunched a new landing pages. We've rebuilt and fine-tuned our Tourism Intelligence Solution. We're super excited that the system was used as the base to implement the OECS Tourism Market Intelligence Platform.

Apart from the extensive work on our internal project, we're happy for the few small projects. We also delighted with the rebuilt of Acorn Tourism T-Stats: a web-based facility combining, analysing and sharing data for tourism destinations.

My personal highlight is that we've received the Excellence in Application of Digital Technology and Rising Star Award at the 30th Annual Grenada Chamber of Industry and Commerce (GCIC) Business Award held on November 17, 2018. We are grateful to all our clients and the team for their hard work and dedication.

In 2019 Sonover will continue to grow. We will soon release some job openings on our site.

Writing

This year, I haven't done much writing. This feel a little disappointing to me. Nevertheless, restructuring my professional life may ease up some time for some blogging in 2019. I am hoping to write on a couple of substantial in-depth topic in the year and then some small low-quality articles bi-monthly.

I am indeed happy that I finally gotten some time to redesign my website. Don't forget to subscribe to my newsletter.

Speaking

This year I gave some small talks:

• ECCB Business Symposium: Restructuring and Transforming Your Business to Take Advantage of Opportunities in the Digital Environment
• Grenada Tourism Authority - Tourism Awareness Month: Radio Interview - Digital Transformation in the Tourism Industry
• MISIT SGU - About Sonover
• SGU Orientation - Alumni talk on my SGU experience, life outside of SGU and advice to new students. I do enjoy speaking. The talks went well. I wish to do a little more next year and improve in this area.

Plans for 2019

So it turns out I did a lot of stuff this year! Here are a couple of things I've got planned for next year:

• Build a new software as a service product. I already have a lot of this planned and will be announced in a couple of days.
• Try podcasting. I am looking for a partner.
• Live Stream. Something I really wants to try in 2019.
• Contribute more to some open source projects.
• More Speaking

Thanks for your support this year. And I wish you a bright and successful 2019.