Bright Minds & Black Gold
As Guyana’s oil revenues climb to record highs, we find ourselves at a pivotal moment. Will we squander this windfall on one-off projects whose benefits evaporate as quickly as the next oil cycle, or will we invest in the people who will carry our nation forward long after the derricks fall silent? At GBJ, we believe the answer lies in marrying two powerful ideas: a perpetual STEM scholarship endowment funded by a portion of our oil royalties, and a Diaspora Bond initiative that invites Guyanese at home and abroad to become literal stakeholders in our country’s future.
Imagine an endowment seeded with public royalties and bolstered by private matching gifts, whose investment returns provide annual awards for aspiring petroleum engineers, data scientists, renewable energy technicians, and other specialists. By aligning scholars with partner institutions—from the University of Guyana to Howard and Tuskegee Universities—we can guarantee our brightest minds hands-on training, mentorship, and career pathways that bring them back home to build our industries.
Simultaneously, we can tap into the generosity and pride of the global Guyanese family through Diaspora Bonds. These tradable debt instruments would offer competitive yields over five- or ten-year terms, channeling bond proceeds into that same scholarship endowment. The beauty of this approach is twofold: investors abroad earn a solid return, and they witness, year by year, the engineers and researchers their capital helped educate. Online dashboards would track every dollar raised, every scholarship awarded, and every graduate’s career progress, ensuring transparency and building trust.
We need only look to successful models from India and Israel to see how powerful a well-structured Diaspora Bond program can be. By timing bond maturities to coincide with cohort graduations, we create a narrative that resonates deeply: “You funded this young engineer’s education; now you see the payoff.” In Guyana’s case, a modest target of $25 million over two years could help establish a $75 million endowment, supporting roughly 200 new STEM scholars each year by 2028—40 percent of them women—and ensuring that at least half return home within two years of graduation, sparking an economic multiplier across sectors.
Of course, credibility depends on strong governance. A multi-stakeholder board, comprising representatives from government, academia, finance, and the Diaspora, must oversee the deployment of funds. Quarterly audits and annual public reports will keep everyone accountable, while automatic review mechanisms will adapt scholarship and bond terms to evolving national priorities.
To explore these ideas in depth, we invite policy-makers, investors, and concerned citizens to join the next installment of our Transforming Guyana Webinar Series. On Wednesday, June 11, 2025, at 10:30 AM (EST), Aleksandr V. Gevorkyan will lead a live discussion—streamed on StreamYard and simulcast to Facebook and YouTube—on “Diaspora Bonds: Trust, Identity & Infrastructure in Guyana’s Development Journey.” He will unpack lessons from around the world, examine our readiness, and answer audience questions in real time. You can register here.
Our oil boom has the potential either to entrench us in the familiar cycle of resource-driven volatility or to launch us into a new era of home-grown innovation. By harnessing petroleum wealth to build a lasting scholarship endowment and by inviting all Guyanese—near and far—to invest through Diaspora Bonds, we can ensure that today’s black gold becomes tomorrow’s brightest minds. The choice is ours, and the time to act is now.
– The Editorial Board, Guyana Business Journal (Saturday Edition)
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