Chile As An Example In Matters Of Entrepreneurship

Oct. 30, 2009 - PRLog -- Diego Sánchez, the director of the “Centro Integral de Servicios Empresariales” (Comprehensive Center for Business Services) CreaMe, located in Medellín, Colombia, visited the International Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship 3IE of the Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María for one week.  The objective of the internship was to internalize the processes, incubation model, team, the Institute´s portfolio of projects, and sources of financing.  On top of that, he participated in an entrepreneurship workshop, met with entrepreneurs and shared his experiences in Colombia.

CreaMe is a business incubator that started in 1996.  Their objective is to generate an entrepreneurial culture, create and strengthen businesses in Colombia.  Diego Sánchez is the director of business development. With respect to their methodology he added that, “we work using a system called nodes that are specialized units of business accompaniment to cover any type of services.  The special feature is that this is done in alliance with a third party that has identified market or technological needs. Together we work on the entrepreneurial processes and give more potential to the entrepreneurs.”

As far as the state of entrepreneurship and innovation in his country, Diego said that, “the entrepreneurial culture in Colombia has advanced, and a lot of work has been done in high schools and universities.  The government and the state have taken the reigns in this process. Law no. 1014 of entrepreneurship is coming. The objective for this law is to give direction to managing entrepreneurship.  Today, entrepreneurship is alive in Colombia, and it has generated very important accompaniment mechanisms, financing and commercialization”.

With respect to his vision for Chile, he stated that he felt very grateful. “We use Chile as an example in matters of entrepreneurship, with some of their programs for example” said Diego. Also, he added that the work done by the Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María and the 3IE Institute “seems like a very good connection as far as how to bring out the potential of the students.  Something very interesting is that they can come out of this opportunity with a prototype to validate whether or not the idea works.”

At the end of his visit, while marveling at the infrastructure and colors of Valparaíso, the representative from CreaMe emphasized the importance of the people in the organizations. “In the end, the institutions are people who work, the ethics they have, the values of responsibility, love, and passion for what they do. In the end they are the people that cause an organization to grow or to fail.”  His advice to the entrepreneurs was to develop a good profile of their clients, look for allies in each country, seek accompaniment in different programs and see which of them is the best at what they do at the international level because “you are not competing with other Chileans, but rather with the world, so always look to have the best of the best and be different.” During his internship in Valparaíso, Sánchez met with Víctor Aguilera, director of the 3IE institute, and René Villegas, manager of new businesses, to come up with a proposal to create a collaborative network between CreaMe and the 3IE Institute.

Diego Sánchez has a degree in Industrial Economy from the Universidad de Medellín.  He is specialized in CEIPA management.  He has an executive MBA from the Escuela de Administración de Empresas (School of Business Administration) in Barcelona, España.  He is the director of the Colombian business incubator CreaMe. He participated in the creation of incubator Virtual.com.  He participated in the content of the first virtual department for the creation of technology based companies MINCOMEX and IEBTA.

Internships
The visit from the representative from Colombia was done in the framework of the internship program funded by Banco Mundial´s InfoDev and the National Association of Technological Parks and Business Incubators of Brazil, Anprotec.  The objective was to encourage the development of a collaborative network between incubators and other institutions that provide business development services in Latin America and the Caribbean.  

This program is oriented to staff members from incubators to facilitate exchanges, experiences and networks between incubators and businesses that are members of the Latin-American Network of Business Incubators and Technological Parks (RedLAC), promoted by InfoDev and REDLAPI (Latin-American Technological Park and Incubator Associations Network).

About CreaMe
CreaMe was started in Colombia in 1996 with the name “Incubadora de Empresas de Base Tecnológica de Antioquia” (Technology Based Business Incubator of Antioquia) accompanied by different players in the society: private companies, associations, the government and more than 16 universities.

In 2006 it was transformed into CreaMe Centro Integral de Servicios Empresariales, a tool to execute and achieve the objectives of the entrepreneurs, the institutions and the territorial entities.

About 3IE
The International Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (3IE) is looking for opportunities to convert the knowledge and ideas into prototypes, products, and new companies with bases in technology. The activities of 3IE are oriented to support businesses, organisms, and institutions, both national and international, in order to promote the productive economic development nationally and across Latin America.

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The International Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (3IE) is looking for opportunities to convert the knowledge and ideas into prototypes, products, and new companies with bases in technology. The activities of 3IE are oriented to support businesses, organisms, and institutions, both national and international, in order to promote the productive economic development nationally and across Latin America.