Red Plastic Bag among UWI honourees

Stedson “Red Plastic Bag” Wiltshire, Maxine Williams and Alan Emtage

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados  – A gifted lyricist, a master inventor and a global talent manager will be honoured by The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill for their stellar professional achievements at this year’s graduation ceremony scheduled for October 19th.

Barbadian calypsonian Stedson “Red Plastic Bag” Wiltshire will be conferred a Doctor of Letters (DLitt) for his contribution to entertainment, while internet pioneer Alan Emtage will receive a Doctor of Science (DSc) for his sterling commitment to scientific invention. Maxine Williams will be conferred a Doctor of Law (LLD) for leadership.

Stedson “Red Plastic Bag” Wiltshire

Often referred to simply as RPB, the renowned musical maestro Wiltshire has been in the entertainment business for almost four decades, amassing a repertoire of over 400 songs with 25 albums recorded. He got his start in the St Philip Calypso Competition, which he won consecutively from 1979 to 1981. In 1982, RPB became the youngest person to win a national calypso title at 21 years old – an honour he held until 2016.

Williams is an Attorney-at-Law and the Global Head of Diversity at Facebook, where she is charged with ensuring that the company’s talent and partner base are as inclusive as its users. The Trinidadian assumed the role in 2013, after serving as Director of Diversity at a global law firm at which she was responsible for developing and implementi

Maxine Williams

ng a diversity plan.

In the region, Williams has worked with several international organisations on human rights issues. She has also represented clients in criminal, civil and industrial courts in Trinidad and the United Kingdom at the Privy Council. Williams also enjoyed a parallel career as a broadcast journalist, actress and on-air presenter.

Alan Emtage

Emtage wrote the code which helped to open our Internet universe. As a student at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, he conceived of and implemented Archie, the world’s first pre-Web Internet search engine. Archie provided the foundation on which public search engines operate to this day.

Born and raised in Barbados, Emtage received his secondary school education at Harrison College before moving on to North America for his BSc in 1987 and later an MSc in Computer Science which he received in 1992.

That same year, Emtage, along with Peter J. Deutsch, founded Bunyip Information Systems, Inc., the world’s first company expressly established and dedicated to providing Internet information services. Bunyip distributed a licensed, commercial version of the Archie search engine.