I recently had the honor to be invited to the launch the national innovation system of Ecuador and the inauguration of the Center for Entrepreneurship of YACHAY. The event was attended by Rafael Correa, President of the Republic of Ecuador, and I had the opportunity to mentor Ecuadorian entrepreneurs on the key aspects of starting a business.
The events took place on January 15-16 during the Innópolis Forum, a summit for the exchange of experiences and views on key issues regarding creativity, entrepreneurship, innovation and venture capital, with more than 150 exhibitors and bringing more than 30 international speakers to Ecuador, such as Greg Horowitt, co-author of “The Rainforest: The Secret to Building the Next Silicon Valley”, Saul Singer, co-author of “Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle”, Inti Núñez, director of entrepreneurship at CORFO with Startup Chile in under his portfolio, Jeremy Abbett, creative evangelist at Google, and Jose Miguel Benavente, chief of the Competitiveness and Innovation Division at the Inter-American Development Bank; amongst others.
YACHAY is the first planned city of Ecuador implemented by the government of Ecuador with an assigned budget of USD 1,040 million for the first four years. The city includes a technology park, industrial area and biotech zone, articulated across 4,800 hectares. YACHAY is located in the province of Imbabura, in the north of the country. Its goals are: fostering innovation and entrepreneurship, hosting the best ideas, the best talent and the most modern technical infrastructure, and promoting scientific and technological development of Ecuador, with a long-term vision of shifting the national production matrix from a resource based to a knowledge-intensive economy.
The President of Ecuador has called the “Yachay City of Knowledge” the most important national project of the last hundred years, not only in terms of the ambition of its proposal, but of the confluence of both the State, Academia and Industry in order to achieve sustainable economic development increasing the local standard of living. YACHAY also offers the Yachay University of Technology Experimental Research, along with public and private research institutes, technology transfer centers, and high-tech enterprises and the agricultural and agribusiness community.
Innopolis received more than 12,500 visitors at its Technology Fair, and also hosted the award ceremony of seed capital of a national project competition for startups. The Innopolis Forum was inaugurated by Vice-President of Ecuador Jorge Glas, who visited the tech exhibitions and was active engaging the participants, speakers and the local community. Innopolis closed with the address of President Correa and an spectacular end-of-event show with fireworks, folkloric and contemporary Ecuadorian music and dancing performances which commemorated eight years since his he took office in 2007.
The vision of Yachay is to become a science, technology, innovation and entrepreneurship hub for Ecuadorians and open to talent from around Latin America and the world. The Innopolis Forum was a celebration of friendship strengthening networks and sharing the dream of making the world a better place through entrepreneurship. I was inspired by the effort in sweat and heart invested by all intrapreneurs in the Yachay team, lead by Hector Rodriguez and Ramiro Moncayo. This was my first visit to Ecuador and I am sure it is just one of many to come.