It was an old farm near the Riachuelo, where the Fish Market was operating a century ago, today there are hundreds of young people who give life to their projects, creating new products with 3D printers or designing the fashion that will be used next season.
Now, the place boasts a modern architectural style reminiscent of its origins, but with an eye on the future and the latest trends. There, at the Metropolitan Design Center, Juan Pedro Córica, director of Emprendedores porteño, talked with iProUP about the situation of startups in the City, the challenges of the sector and the role of the State to promote innovation entrepreneurship.
Because of the ecosystem that the city of Buenos Aires has, due to the quantity of and an important maturity, there is a variety of actors that is quite interesting, not only in comparison with Argentina, but also with respect to the region. There is software development in all its subsectors, such as cybersecurity, cryptocurrencies, services, applications. It is something already established, consolidated and that is still being developed. Also software factory ventures.
Afterwards, we have a design sector that comes a little reinventing itself, which has some sub-sectors, which are perhaps niche, like objects, which are more related to interior design, fashion. But there is also an industrial sector that works with some companies that we would like to develop and grow.
The audiovisual sector is also very dynamic due to the changes it is undergoing. We are working to recover competitiveness. About six years ago, many productions from abroad were held here, had a super important movement and was at the forefront of the region. He is one of those who move the most within incubations.
We incubate and leave new proposals. From working with mini-influencers in social networks and how to manage this new phenomenon, to new ideas about real-time interaction in audiovisual format recitals with the public and the bands.
The same as in immersive technology. In June we brought the Virtuality event from Paris. There is a variety of field of application that is superinteresting, very incipient. It's starting, but 3,500 people came in three days and 7,000 had been scored, there's a lot of interest. It is something that is just beginning, we need to develop many capacities. But in the city there are already 80 producers that work these technologies.
The audiovisual sector is very strong, the design sector in general is being reconverted and now has a much broader front, digital design, industrial design, this is changing a bit.
We believe in public-private collaboration. It is something that has to do with society, regardless of the government. Society is integral, it is natural that public-private projects can be made.
In what has to do with established companies and startups, we believe that they have to be connected and more and more. When you ask an entrepreneur what they need, the first thing they will say is that they need customers.
It's something natural for us and it's something that everyone needs. Companies are realizing. In other countries, they have already noticed and here are more and more, those who understand that they have to interact with the ventures. They have to start to open their problems and open themselves to open innovation programs or be able to connect with that sector and take innovative ideas from entrepreneurs or entrepreneurs who want to solve this problem.
We see that this is growing, we also see that the idea of having corporate funds is growing, that in other countries they are already overdeveloped and represent 80% of the funds to be able to develop and support ventures. It is growing and there are more and more proposals that we offer to be able to link with entrepreneurs.
But they are seeing projects just to make the City more efficient, like improving traffic, parking, lighting, and so on.
What we say is that what we want is smart citizens because it does not help you to have a city that you think is intelligent because it has sensors if the citizen does not use them. So, the first thing to have is an intelligent citizen.
However, what we are doing is generating some laboratories, there are some issues that are already done in the city. First, the fiber optic ring that is being deployed by the ASI (Buenos Aires Information Systems Agency) in order to connect the entire city and have WiFi in public places. All that is connectivity today is like talking about the streets: without connectivity, you can not circulate, each time it is going to be more of a necessity. And then, what has to do with the application. Today there are a lot of sensors on the subway and buses.
What we are doing are laboratories. We are looking to select a neighborhood or some sector where you can work and explore what to solve. There is a list of ideas, but we want to do it together with the neighbors. If it is a solution to a relevant problem, it will have adoption. If you do not have adoption, even if you have the best technology, it does not make sense.
The city has the highest density of universities and companies in the country. In addition, there is the Scientific Pole, although it depends on Nation, in what way do they encourage these actors to communicate and approach the academy and the productive apparatus?
First, the city of Buenos Aires became this year it became the first city in Latin America selected by Spanish-speaking students, we surpassed Barcelona and Madrid. We have 70,000 foreign students in the area with which the movement of students and universities is super-powerful, superimportant.
We have two work plans. One has to do with entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship, and the other with research and development in science and technology. Clara De Hertelendy, director of Technological Linkage, leads programs to improve the capacities of the technological linkage offices that universities have with the productive sector. And it tries to generate that synergy between the generation of knowledge, and the generation of products and services that impact on people's lives.
The other line of work are the ventures. How to generate a company that generates work, that generates solutions and that is sustained over time. We have a program to move from idea to action, a series of co-creation sessions where we transfer techniques so that people who have an idea mature it, challenge it, make it grow. And that it ends up becoming a project.
Then there is a competition so that the best projects can have a scholarship, some funding and become an enterprise. Based on that idea, this year we are doing the Entrepreneurial Olympics for the first time. We made an open call and 15 universities were presented.
Almost all universities start to have a club of entrepreneurs and it is a phenomenon that was already a little more consolidated. And what was not happening was to connect them with the rest of the ecosystem. We have a working table with these 15 universities from different areas and we meet once a month to share information and knowledge.
What are Entrepreneurial Olympics?The idea is to plant that seed and have a boy study at the university because we consider it valuable, but that he can study thinking he can start. We do not say that the undertakings are easy, they require a lot of effort, it is complicated, but it is possible. Both private and public universities participate, it was an open call and the initiatives were presented.
They will have the final on Entrepreneur's Day, on November 13 and 14. This year is worth double because it is ten years since the City has policies for entrepreneurs. The idea is to work with the university sector, since it does not have the entrepreneurial theme in its official curriculum.
But the idea is that any university student can consider the option of university training, but to do his own business and not necessarily to go to work somewhere. When I was trained, both in secondary school and university, it was always to work in one place. I never considered the option of being able to start my own company, because throughout the educational system they never proposed it to me. I realized that when I was 24 years old, finishing the race.
It is the idea. At first, the universities started with entrepreneur clubs because the others did and did not want to be left out. What we want is for that to be useful. The final goal is to be inside, but the City has no interference with the curricula of the universities, it is something that will be achieved progressively.
But the City does have an influence on the curricula of secondary schools, where the entrepreneurial issue will be incorporated starting next year with professional practices. They will start in 38 schools that will have the option to develop their own project. This will progressively expand to the rest of the secondary ones. We understand that, unfailingly, it will reach the curricula of the universities at some point.
The most important thing is to show that it is an option that is on the menu. That there is no lack of that option. Then, you can work perfectly in a company and be an internal entrepreneur, an intrapreneur, as they say in the United States. But that depends on each person. The educational system has to develop the potential of each person.
Mayer said a few days ago that 300,000 startups are needed across the country to generate the jobs needed. In the City there must be an amount
We do not have a metric, but we are working with a university to generate a report and have a measurement, because the ones we have are old. We want to have more information to understand what is the photo of where we are standing. Yes we have the intuition that this is the case and it is the sector where there is more generation of employment.
In this we fully agree with Mariano, because they are issues that we talk to him many times. SMEs are the main source of job generation. In this sense, the City of Buenos Aires was the first district that implemented the Sociedades por Acciones Simplificadas (SAS) and has 3,000 in one year.
Every endeavor that employs five people, when the sum is made, the amount of work it generates is enormous. Throughout Argentina there are 800,000 SMEs. If each employs one more person, there will be 800,000 immediate jobs.
Obviously that is not easy to do. But each new company generates more employment, especially these ventures that are dynamic, they pull when they start to grow and move the ammeter a lot. For example, came JP Morgan came in with the goal of bringing 500 people already has 1,500. It may grow a little more, but it will have a limit. If we generate 300,000 SMEs and in each there are five people, the volume of people is enormous.
In technology-based companies, what is the vertical that could be the differential in the City and what is the one that should be promoted?
The one that I see more thriving and that I think will continue to be is software. It is already recognized by the volume and quality of companies. Among the sectors that I think could be much stronger are audiovisual and design. They have a lot of courage to keep growing but with an international perspective. Only with the Argentine domestic market will not betray.
Then there are some more physical developments, working with IoT, which are looking for applications and see where it is useful. He started with home automation, which was the question of managing things in the house, which is nice but not so useful, but now he is focusing on more useful things.
And as Mariano Mayer said, the question of agtech. All of them visualize that how Argentina is recognized all over the world by agriculture and getting on that recognition is something that from the point of view of positioning is closer. There is an opportunity there. There is a confluence of a sector that is agroindustrial and the technology sector to be able to meet. We have four companies that are working in that sector.
Another is the fintech sector, because the Argentine financial heart is in the City and it is hyperdynamic. In addition, Argentina has a number of people working in cybersecurity that is quite relevant to the size of the country. That sector is very linked to crypto, there is a there is an important synergy. Buenos Aires is the second city in the world with the largest number of bitcoin transactions, above San Francisco. That has a downside, which is the question of our currency; and the positive, which is the variety of applications and the capacity of option that we have for the banking system.
Outside of technology there are other sectors that have to work in the City, related to the enterprises by necessity or the most vulnerable sectors, which we need to have economic development. So, they have to be able to generate their own enterprise to be sustainable, have their income and not depend on a subsidy from the state.
Is the crypto development being promoted by the Government?
What the government is doing today with the crypt part is not to get involved, to wait for the system to mature. Because if you start regulating it before time is the chance to kill it before it develops. In short, you must solve the financial issue of the people.
The sector of biotechnology or of scientific base in general has a lot of potential. There are many research and development centers in the city of Buenos Aires. It is a sector that has a longer maturation, because a solution with a scientific-technological base is more complex, it takes more time, more investment.
There are very interesting companies, such as Grid Exponential, a builder company that tries to bring together researchers with entrepreneurs from the business side to generate companies with a scientific-technological base, which is growing little by little, is developing and each of these companies It has a very important value, it is relevant, it has an international projection.
There it is necessary to sustain state policies that give continuity and allow these projects to develop. But each one of these companies are companies of more than 100 million dollars quietly. So, if we can generate 100, 200 of those companies from Argentina.
It is very difficult. There is an issue with intellectual data protection and developments in science-based technology startups is a key issue. The protection of the intellectual herself in Argentina has certain difficulties. The INPI is working, it is improving its processes, it is transforming itself. But there is a reality: most process their patent in the United States, because that is where everyone goes to protect things.
In the B20, spoke Juan Carlos Parodi, a doctor who is probably a Nobel Prize in Medicine, developed a technology and a method to make repairs of veins of the heart from the groin: it enters through the veins and fixes. All of these patents are in the United States, they could not be patented here because of the legal security issue and it is something that Argentina has to work very hard, because if it is not going to lose these ventures.
Argentine entrepreneurs want to develop Argentina, they have a lot of shirt, they push a lot. In fact, Parodi is in Argentina because he wants to try to develop that here. The government has to create the conditions to provide legal security so that this can be further developed.
In a section of the talk with iProUP, Córica referred to some innovative projects that are more related to specific needs than their technological part.
"We are seeing a lot of new businesses that have to do with innovation from the point of view of services, processes or models, not so much the technological issue, I believe that sometimes we gain the tendencies and we find it half It's easy to get into a trend because we think it's going to leave us somewhere faster, "said the official.And he completed: "It seems to me that it is much more interesting to understand the problems, to start from the problems and not fall in love with the solutions".
What examples of this emerged in the City? We have a project called 'Cuido Bien' that is superinteresting and has to do with care at home, for both boys and adults. And it is not the problem of seeking supply with demand, but the problem is to solve is quality. None is satisfied with the quality of care. And that is an area that is still not resolved.
They are bringing a proposal to work from the quality of care. And that solves a problem that is relevant to people. That is another trend and there it is quite heterogeneous. I can also name "Passbook", which has to do with soccer players. Only 1% of players get to play first and 1% earn a lot of money. The rest stays on the road. There are many people who need to find a place and live their profession. And they found that problem and are looking for a solution to connect them with different markets, different clubs. They solve a social problem that until now nobody was attacked or trying to solve.
Actually, technology is software, but the most innovative is the focus on the problem, detect it and a new process of how to solve it. There are many sectors, but what unites them is the innovation in the selection of the program and after the method of how to try to solve it, independently of the technology.