A Small Tablet Company Brings High-Tech Hopes To Haiti
Haiti has struggled to rebuild since a devastating earthquake more than four years ago. Most of the population lives on less than $2 a day and there are few open jobs for the millions of unemployed.
But there's a bright spot: The Western Hemisphere's poorest country is getting into the high-tech race thanks to Surtab, a Port-au-Prince-based company that makes Android tablets.
"Last month we [produced] 2,500. This month, as soon as we get components, we're now going to have a run rate of about 3,000-3,500," says Maarten Boute, Surtab's CEO. "So we're gradually ramping up."
Before the tablet business, the Belgian-born and Kenyan-raised Boute headed up Haiti's largest mobile company, Digicel. He says the combination of a booming population and the country's decent 3G network make Haiti a prime market.
"It wouldn't make sense in the smaller Caribbean islands, where your local market is not that big and where your diaspora is not that big either. One of our key next growth factors is that we'll start exporting from Haiti, fulfilled ... directly in Haiti ... to the diaspora," Boute says. "A lot of demand has come from there because people want to show that 'Hey, Haiti can do this.' "
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