Kingston, Jamaica — It was not the typical “follow your dreams” speech. In front of hundreds of high schoolers poised for the next phase of their academic lives, Member of Parliament Delano Seiveright issued a hard-hitting challenge: adapt, or be left behind.
At the 2025 Immaculate Conception High School College Fair, Seiveright skipped fluff and cut to the marrow of the moment. “The world you’re walking into has already changed,” he warned. “AI, digital networks, cultural upheaval — none of it is waiting on you.”
The event brought together over 1,000 students and 50+ institutions, but Seiveright made it clear that prestige means little without adaptability. “It’s not about the grades anymore — not really. It’s about whether you can keep learning, keep shifting, and still stay grounded when everything around you moves,” he said.
He referenced the brutal pace of global transformation — from Amazon’s warehouse-less empire to TikTok’s grip on global attention spans — framing them not as stories of success but as proof that traditional models are dying. “Look at how Uber shattered the taxi industry or how Airbnb rewrote what it means to ‘own property’. Those were not tweaks — they were total rewrites. And if you’re not the one doing the rewriting, you’re the one being rewritten.”
What stood out wasn’t just the tech talk. Seiveright drilled into mindset: curiosity over comfort, discipline over distractions, and emotional intelligence as the new survival tool. He issued a stark reminder that Jamaica’s youth aren’t competing with their classmates — they’re up against billions of equally ambitious peers from Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas.
Yet it wasn’t all grim. “You don’t have to be the smartest in the room. But you do have to be the sharpest,” he said, encouraging students to embrace the chaos, question everything, and turn their cultural identity into their competitive edge.
Behind him, booths for Ivy League schools, local universities, and global colleges buzzed with hopeful conversations. But the echo of Seiveright’s words lingered in the air like a gauntlet thrown.
The fair, organized by sixth form coordinator Kadesha Croney, doubled as both opportunity and reckoning — a mirror held up to the future of Jamaican youth, asking not just where they want to go, but who they’re willing to become to get there.
