For a Uruguayan entrepreneur, landing in Silicon Valley today is a totally different experience from what it might have been ten years ago. So said Martín Alcalá, CEO of Tryolabs, a company that sells artificial intelligence technology and services in that market. He said that towards the end of the first decade of the 2000s, when he first got off the plane looking for growth opportunities, he didn't even know which doors to knock on.
Alcalá was one of the first Uruguayan companies to set up in Silicon Valley and to be accelerated by the 500 Startups programme.
Today there are several Uruguayan technology companies that are installed, export their services or have raised capital in Silicon Valley. And the camaraderie between Uruguayans has become one of the tools to achieve the goals of entrepreneurs who see Silicon Valley as an opportunity to take off.
The importance of strengthening ties with the home of high-value technology companies such as Apple, Google and Facebook is no longer debated in the world. In Uruguay, strengthening relations with Silicon Valley "is of national interest," said Alcalá, who is also a director of the Uruguayan Chamber of Information Technology (CUTI). In a country where support for start-ups is only consolidated in their initial stages, the link with Silicon Valley is synonymous with growth.
For the coordinator of the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) at ORT University, Enrique Topolansky, Silicon Valley "has no special interest in anyone", since what they are looking for is talent in the world, regardless of the country it comes from: "we have to show that we are better".
Since the first official mission to Silicon Valley in 2012, ecosystem actors agree that the 10,000 kilometres that separate Uruguay from the technological mecca seem to have been shortened. Not only as a result of the camaraderie between Uruguayans, but also because initiatives at the level of government and public and private institutions are making a difference in this link.
An example of this was the last official mission to Silicon Valley on 22 October, which included a delegation of 60 people, including institutions, entrepreneurs and authorities, led by the Minister of Industry, Energy and Mining, Carolina Cosse.
This outpost was not only the largest ever to that destination, but also generated greater repercussions for having had an agenda in which the interest in meeting certain business objectives was far greater than that of getting to know and visiting some of the places of reference for the technology industry.
"From the beginning we set out to bring something back. We had set up the meetings and activities looking for things for the sector and the country," said CUTI president Leonardo Loureiro.
"In this case, what we didn't do was technological tourism. We went looking for specific things," he added.
For Loureiro, one can no longer go to Silicon Valley just to learn, but to achieve something concrete.
Ambassadors in partnership
In the same bus, Minister Cosse toured some of the world's leading technology companies headquartered in Silicon Valley with some sixty entrepreneurs, businesspeople and authorities. Collaboration was a key ingredient in the planning of the agenda, despite the fact that among those who travelled there were companies in the same field. Facebook, for example, was approached through a Uruguayan who works at the company. "There is no doubt that our main ambassadors are our own fellow citizens," said Loureiro.
During the trip, one of the entrepreneurs in the delegation took the opportunity to meet with different accelerators and, when he returned from each meeting, he had 59 advisors and motivators. "He would bring us his stories from the meetings and everyone would give him ideas. At the next meeting, he would apply what he had analysed," said a member of the delegation.
This camaraderie is something that comes naturally to Uruguayans in Silicon Valley. One of the founders of GPSGay, Magdalena Rodríguez, said that Uruguayans help each other in every way, whether it's recommending a lawyer or giving advice on how to save money. "The last thing you can be afraid of in this market is competition," said Rodríguez.
Moreover, the Ingenio incubator managed to sign a cooperation agreement with the Plug & Play accelerator with the help of Uruguayan Yael Oppenheimer, and it was through this link that the startup Glamst was able to benefit from its acceleration programme in 2014.
Strengthening the network
One of the achievements most highlighted by the ecosystem actors and those who participated in the mission was the agreement reached with the telecommunications company Cisco. The agreement will allow UTU students to access Networking Academy courses, an IT skills development programme for educational institutions. In addition, contact was strengthened with the organisation Puente Labs - which seeks to build bridges between Latin America and Silicon Valley - with the aim of reaching an agreement from which several of the Uruguayan startups that are trying to work for the United States can benefit, and Minister Cosse, among other things, met with Tesla to analyse the possibilities of bringing the company to Uruguay.
For Alcalá, the results of the mission "far exceeded expectations". Loureiro added that there are plans to carry out this type of mission annually, with the aim of making the link with Silicon Valley "real and concrete".
"We have generated a whole relationship between the Uruguayan ecosystem and the Silicon Valley ecosystem. What we are trying to do is to make that network much denser," he said.
Another of the members of the delegation, the president of LATU, Fernando Fontán, said that the trip served to learn first-hand how the link between entrepreneurs and the economic framework that favours entrepreneurship works, i.e. the companies that connect with them and that, according to the official, have "an open innovation logic". For Fontán, in turn, it helped to validate the line of work that has been set out and to understand the imperative of incorporating the concept of digital disruption in all sectors. "We are at a very good time to reflect on these things and the mission was an excellent input for that reflection," he said.
Other initiatives
For the first time, the Silicon Valley acceleration model came to Uruguay through the National Research and Innovation Agency, ANDE, LATU and Uruguay XXI. For six weeks and ending last Monday 27th, the 500 Startups programme based in Silicon Valley intensively accelerated 21 Uruguayan startups, also being the first time that so many local startups were able to connect simultaneously with experts from this innovation factory.
Bringing an accelerator programme like 500 Startups to Uruguay was an idea that the National Agency for Research and Innovation (ANII) had had for some years.
"Uruguayan startups need, on the one hand, networks and networking, and on the other hand, skills to enter the global market," said ANII president Fernando Brum. So they looked for accelerators in Silicon Valley that could fulfil this role, contacted three and received a positive response from 500 Startups.
The programme operates in several parts of the world. However, Uruguay was the first Latin American country to receive it. According to Brum, the programme has several aspects. It not only favours the selected companies, but also serves as training for the entire ecosystem, as there were instances to bring together other startups and local investors. The results and impact of the programme will now be evaluated and it will be decided whether it is possible to replicate the experience.
The director of Ingenio, Rafael García, said that the programme could be considered for continuity in the coming years or, ideally, for permanent installation.
For his part, the CEO of Sinergia, Martín Larre, commented that they constantly try to maintain a link with Silicon Valley. He said that they work with the same methodologies as those used in Silicon Valley and that, in addition, they are planning for the first time a trip with the incubatees for the second half of 2018, for which they are already working together with a travel agency.
Can Maldonado be the Silicon Valley of South America?
Maldonado has the characteristics to be the Silicon Valley of South America," said the secretary general of the Maldonado Municipality, Diego Echeverría, in an interview with FM Gente radio station. The official, who was part of the trade mission to Silicon Valley, explained to Café & Negocios that Maldonado has geographical, human - with the youngest population in the country -, academic and economic characteristics that make it friendly to generate an entrepreneurial ecosystem of technological relevance. "There are foreign residents and Uruguayans who work abroad, we have very good connectivity and great entrepreneurs from the world of technology who live here most of the year," he said. He added that there is a "very favourable" university ecosystem and that entrepreneurship and training in technological careers are encouraged: "We have a fundamental factor for this, which is human resources".
He said that the profile of people working in these types of companies seeks the tranquillity, security and urban conditions of Maldonado, with a large number of empty properties all year round. "The actors with whom we have exchanged opinions are convinced that we have the characteristics to be a friendly ecosystem for technology companies. We believe it has to be part of a state policy. This is the first step to start consolidating this concept," he added.
But there are those who believe that the conditions are not in place for either Punta del Este or Uruguay to replicate a Silicon Valley. This is the case of the director of ORT's CIE, Enrique Topolansky, who said that while "it is nice to pursue utopias", it is necessary to do a lot of homework to make it happen. "Homework in everything that has to do with generating research capacities, links with industry, development of artificial intelligence, all issues that have to do with regulations. This means that Uruguay is a long way from having a Silicon Valley," he said. He said that, in any case, Montevideo would be the place, as it is where they have been working for a long time. The director of Ingenio, Rafael García, agreed with Topolansky: "Replicating Silicon Valley in any place that is not Silicon Valley seems a bit adventurous to me. There are some ideas that you can copy, others that you can adapt and others that will never be the same.
The CEO of Sinergia, Martín Larre, pointed out that Uruguay has the potential to generate a globally relevant technological pole, but that it cannot be replicated, but rather adapted.
For ANII president Fernando Brum, this is because Silicon Valley has a history and process behind it that makes it unrepeatable. "To say "let's repeat this" is not a good idea. There are horrible experiences in that sense," he added.
Source: The Observer
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