By the Caribbean Journal staff

Jamaica’s Education Ministry will focus on helping Jamaican students leverage their natural creativity in culture and the development of technology, Prime Minister Andrew Holness said yesterday.

Holness was speaking at the awards ceremony of the Blackberry Developers Competition at the University of the West Indies.

“Once that community grows, who knows, Blackberry, maybe some of your competitors may be looking at this growing community of developers and start investing in Jamaica,” Holness said. “In doing that investment, we create sustainable employment which will build families, which will then help to build communities and Jamaica.”

Holness is also the country’s Education Minister.

“The jobs that we seek, the growth and the development that we want, will not come by shortcuts,” he said. “We have to come to the realization that we have to apply ourselves. In the information age, applying yourself is not just about our traditional industry resources but the leveraging of our natural creative industries as well.”

The Blackberry Developers Competition was spearheaded by the Education Ministry and the Office of the Prime Minister in partnership with Digicel and Research in Motion.

Northern Caribbean University was awarded first prize at the tertiary level.