Who needs humility when the numbers announce that software is making Uruguay's bits as popular as its cows? Entrepreneurs in this industry say their problems are positive. None of them complain about taxes, nor the size of the market, nor talk about unemployment. The universe of information and communication technologies (ICT or IT) is an oasis in the midst of struggling economies. Those who immerse themselves in it say that good things are happening and that there are no signs that they will stop happening: "The market is infinite, this is a land of opportunities," says Martín Alcalá Rubí, co-founder of MonkeyLearn and director of Tryolabs, a company specializing in artificial intelligence software with a focus on the Silicon Valley market.
Uruguay may not have had coal or oil, but it does have some 470 companies behind the computers that break profit records. The size of their success represents 2.5% of the Gross Domestic Product, that is, half the contribution made by agricultural businesses. According to the latest survey conducted by the Uruguayan Chamber of Information Technology (CUTI), in 2017 its members had a turnover of US$ 1,489 million, 26% more than the previous year: the highest figure in the short life of the industry.
"Being a small and distant country, we were left out of many industries, but not this one, because we were able to generate knowledge that is easy to export to the rest of the world," says Alcalá. Exports of services and products to more than 30 countries totaled US$675 million, up 65% from the previous year. More than half were sold to the United States, and 16% of the firms had sales of more than US$5 million.
There is no room for false modesty.
Andrés Levin, Overactive's chief technology executive, says: "Anywhere in the world you talk about a Uruguayan engineer and he commands respect, the cost conversation is already on the back burner. The company where he works has quadrupled in size in the last two years. In 2018 it had 250 employees, so far in 2019 it has hired more than 100, and has an unsatisfied demand of another hundred.
He aims to reach December with a staff of 500, but he doesn't know if it will be possible, so he has no choice but to start looking for talent outside the country, and open offices in other cities. "There is a boom in the need for talent in this industry. All over the world there is a lack of programmers and developers at all levels, especially in the economic powers, and that created a very good opportunity for companies like ours, which can offer talent from here. We are often hired to enlarge the teams that clients have in the first world. But we are also lacking people here. There are good resources, but in small quantities", explains Pablo Brenner, Overactive's innovation director.
And here is the challenge that worries all these happy entrepreneurs. The sector employs about 25,000 people. Only in 2017, CUTI's partner companies (there are 380) generated 12,128 jobs, but although they do not like to talk about "problems", they know that the quantity and quality of human resources is not accompanying the growth. "There are projects that companies are not taking on because they don't have the people to carry them out," says Leonardo Loureiro, president of CUTI and manager of Quanam.
The development of talent is tied to the other challenges facing the industry: changing its productive matrix from being mainly service providers to creators of intellectual property, and responding to the message the government sent to the sector when last year it extended the IRAE exemption for exports to local commerce, on the condition that it generated jobs in the country.
The problem is on the table. Now, these scientists-turned-entrepreneurs are looking for a solution. But how do you foster the creation of brilliant minds?
Source: El País
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