Coding his future - UTech student eyes Caribbean tech transformation

When the next academic year begins in September 2026, Jamaican Justin Brown will be one of 10 international students starting a Master of Management in Analytics postgraduate programme at McGill University in Canada.

The 20-year-old University of Technology (UTech), Jamaica student was one of 2,000 candidates worldwide who applied for the McCall MacBain Scholarship at the Montreal, Quebec-based university.

Brown, the only Jamaican in the pool, completed the final round of interviews in March, with the university this month announcing the 11 international applicants and 19 Canadians who will form the sixth cohort to secure Canada’s largest leadership-based scholarship.

According to the 2026 QS World University Rankings, McGill is ranked as Canada’s number one university and 27th globally.

The McCall MacBain Scholarship provides a full ride to postgraduate students in 150 programmes at McGill who demonstrate leadership potential and community engagement.

The Spanish Town native could barely contain his excitement while describing the development as “extremely special”.

“I was, I was shocked, but not completely surprised, because I mean I was obviously doing the work, not only in terms of these interviews, but like even in the events coming up to the interviews, you know, like the work experience, the activities I did at school, you know, the conversations my father and I had, you know, all of those kind of added up. So I can't say I was completely surprised, but I can tell you that it was exciting,” he told The Gleaner.

The 20-year-old is the only child of his father Kevin Brown, a single parent, and will be flying the nest for the first time as he moves to Canada after his mother migrated when he was in Grade 6.

“It's definitely going to be a culture shock, because you know I have depended on my father for a lot of things. Even though he gave me autonomy to make my own decisions, he still has been a big component to my way of living. I think I might have to do it kind of gradual, you know kind of keep him in the loop for quite a bit, until I'm able to kind of fully, you know, spread my wings by myself for the time that I'm over there,” he mused.

Montreal’s main language is French, which Brown says he is actively learning even as he completes his first degree in Computer Studies at UTech, a path he credits to an early lesson from his father during prep school.

“Well, I chose that field of study because of a little bit of a nudge from my father. When I was in Grade 4, I had computer studies. And I completely disregarded it because I didn’t have to do it for PEP. So I was like, I don’t need this. I’m fine. And then the time came for grades to come out and I got a D. And my father looked at it and he was like,’Hey so what happened here?’ because all my other grades were good except for computer studies. And I told him I don’t think computer studies matters. And my dad beat me. He believed that I should’ve put in the same effort because I’m his child. You’re bright, you know, I thought I knew everything. You really don’t. So I put in the effort for the next semester, and of course I came out with an A. And then that kind of helped segue into what it became in high school.”

His father insisted that he punished his son because of the deception he tried to pull off, and not because he got a failing grade, fully knowing he was capable of passing the subject once he applied himself.

That experience lit a fuse which burned even brighter in high school.

“I met another student doing some programming on the computer and I was like, that looks kind of cool. So I went home and did a little bit of research because my father was always into researching stuff and just always researching stuff. And then I immersed myself in programming and then even up to fourth form I just continued doing it,” Justin explained.

It eventually led to a life-changing decision when he opted to leave high school at the end of fifth form.

“And then I told my dad, hey, I don’t think I want to go to sixth form. I think I want to skip sixth form and go straight to UTech, which was a little bit of a divergence from what he planned for me. But he heard me out. He let me talk to him about the reasoning behind it and my plan. And he agreed with it. So he allowed me to go to UTech, where I was able to enter the Sagicor Innovation Challenge for 2023. I won that challenge and they gave me a monetary award and an internship as well. And that internship kind of helped bring it into something more mainstream.”

The then 18-year-old, who made the Dean’s List every year, is a member of UTech’s Future Developers Club, teaching other university students current technologies used in the working world, including artificial intelligence.

That journey has now led him to his chosen postgraduate programme.

“I have a plan for the Caribbean, Jamaica and the Caribbean overall, which is kind of build a technology hub, and I mean, I have a 15-year plan that involves me going to Canada as I am now, stay there for five years, kind of build my knowledge base, experience with what is available to me in the resources, then come back by the end of those five years to Jamaica to build out a kind of technology hub to kind of build out the startups or business ideas that are technology-related, kind of like Y Combinator. I have built a lot of technology apps in my years, and I have seen the flaws in the system where I think there should be more opportunities for young people to get funding and mentorship to kind of help their products get to the global competitiveness level.”

Y Combinator is a Silicon Valley-based technology startup accelerator that invests in a large number of startups by providing seed funding, mentorship, and networking opportunities.

“I think my patriotism runs very deep. As I have said, I’m not just doing this from a place of being a philanthropic person, I’ve experienced the downfalls, I’ve experienced the struggle of what it takes to even build something and even get 100 users to use it, right? And it’s difficult. So I am coming from a place of experience. So because of that, it kind of helps give me the motivation and drive to do it, and the fact that I even still have people in Jamaica that I work with, that like with personal projects, that’s like a continuous reminder that, you know, this is what I’m doing it for,” the Wolmer’s Boys’ School alumnus stressed.

Justin’s mother migrated while he was young, forcing his father to pivot into the role of a single parent to his only child. He admitted it will take some adjustment as his son leaves home, but said he is proud of the man he raised.

“It is so fulfilling when you raise a child and with God’s help the child is successful because I know of many people who put in their best effort with their kids and they still become wayward. What I think is part of the success for me and Justin is that everything is a conversation. So I allowed him autonomy from he was about 11 as long as he is able to explain to me, I usually let him write by the way so I would say to him ok write me a paper on that, write me a letter, write me an essay why you think so and so,” the older Brown told The Gleaner.

The younger Brown will head to Quebec in June to begin his 14-month programme in September.

karen.madden@gleanerjm.com