Trini Pride

Today I'm beaming with pride. A Trinidad national has won an Oscar award. No, not for acting, but for his involvement in the development of visual effects software for films. Dr Anil Kokaram, 39, a Sangre Grande-born engineering lecturer at the Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland received the Scientific and Engineering Academy award at a ceremony held in Beverly Hills, California, USA, on Saturday, a fortnight ahead of the headline acting awards event. Kokaram received the award with three members of UK software developer The Foundry’s development team—Dr Bill Collis, Simon Robinson and Ben Kent —for their work on the design and development of Furnace, an integrated suite of software visual effects.

For a Trinidadian to win such a prestigious award, should be a source of great pride for all of us. It's also another notch it our belt of achievements. We have 2 Miss Universe Winners, One Miss World Winner, An Olympic 100 metres gold medalist, A world boxing champion, An Olympic swimming medalist, An Olympic 200m medalist...the list goes on. It was a Trini that wrote "Who Let the Dogs Out", not the Baha Men. They just bought the song. We are a nation full of many talents. If more of us would use the talent for good and stop playing the fool, Trinidad would be such a great place.

Congratulations Dr Kokaram!!