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Americas Competitiveness Forum Debates Issues of Innovation

The Americas Competitiveness Forum, which is taking place this week in Cali, Colombia, today hosted several panel discussions with top experts on the theme of the Forum, "Innovation for Prosperity."

The Minister of Commerce, Industry and Tourism of Colombia Sergio Diaz-Granados welcomed attendees to the round of discussions highlighting that the aim of the event is to "exchange experiences between countries."

The starting point, he explained, was the Consensus of Santo Domingo reached in the 2011 edition of the Forum, in which ten general principles were agreed to strengthen competitiveness in the Americas. Based on these principles the "Signs of Competitiveness in the Americas" Report was prepared, presented Wednesday at the annual meeting of the Inter-American Competitiveness Network.

Minister Diaz-Granados said, “in Colombia we are determined to turn these ten principles into practice." To that end, "we have created a public-private, regional and national system of competitiveness that aims precisely to follow the lines of these ten principles."

The first keynote speaker of the day, Dan Restrepo, former White House Advisor, initiated a panel titled "Innovative and Competitive Cities for a Prosperous Region," that included Michael Penfold, Director of Public Policy and Competitiveness at the Latin American Development Bank (CAF), and Carlos Fonseca, Director of Colciencias, the body responsible for research in science and technology in Colombia.

In his address, Restrepo affirmed that the hemisphere is entering "a new era based on profound geographic, personal and commercial ties. A central factor is the fact that the third largest Latino population and the third largest Latino economy in the world, behind only Brazil and Mexico, is not found within the borders of Latin America, but within the United States," said the former U.S. presidential advisor.

Restrepo acknowledged the challenges in terms of the low competitiveness of Latin America, but insisted that, much like states in the United States have been viewed as "laboratories of democracy;" cities today fulfill that role on the global stage . "From their experiences practical solutions are emerging to important challenges we face in the Americas and the world." "To put it another way," he said, "cities are engines of innovation."

For his part, Michael Penfold noted, "Latin America today is undergoing one of its best moments" economically, "despite being in an adverse global context." But he warned that this situation would not last, unless the cities of the region "confront new challenges of production that call for improvements in the business environment, the quality of our institutions and the quality of our citizens and businesses."

Carlos Fonseca, Director of Colciencias, said it is necessary to break with the idea that the only way to begin to innovate and be competitive is to be dependent on international companies, and expressed doubts about the idea that an agglomeration of companies, universities and the public sector automatically constitutes a "winning hand." To achieve this, he added, it is also necessary to ensure that there is "coordination between the national state and the local state," "coordination between local and state enterprises," and finally, that "universities are already advanced in their conceptualization and are also innovative and entrepreneurial."

The second keynote speaker of the day, the international leader in education, creativity and innovation Ken Robinson, introduced a panel discussion entitled "Challenges in Mindset and Culture for Innovation and High Impact Entrepreneurship" with an address about the process of promoting innovation.

"The challenge is not to have a good idea every now and then. All of us occasionally have good ideas and some companies have one good idea and it keeps them going for a long time. But to succeed now, to flourish now in the challenges we face it is not enough to have one good idea, we need organizations that can have good ideas all the time," said Robinson.

In pursuit of this challenge, added the English author, " leaders have an important role in helping individuals to discover their personal strengths." The second step, he said, is "knowing how creative groups work, how teams work most effectively to generate ideas."

Comprising the panel were the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Commerce, Trade and Industry of Jamaica, Reginald Budhan, and the President of Carvajal SA, Ricardo Obregón, one of the best-known entrepreneurs of Colombia.

Secretary Budhan stressed the importance of education to promote the conditions for innovation nationwide. "Young people have an infinite capacity to learn, but we are not spending enough time on them when they are young," he said.

He emphasized the need to promote innovative capacities of the whole society, not just the privileged. "If we want to create a more cohesive, more unified, more homogeneous society, we have to find a way to bring the bottom up, not leave them behind," he said.

For his part, the CEO of Carvajal, SA, said that "for the private sector, innovation is based on the needs of consumers, by thinking 'how I can add value to those needs?" Expanding on the theme of the challenges of constant innovation, Obregon explained the cyclical process of innovation in his company, in which the fundamental step is to always be asking, "what do we want to do?” in order to never losing sight of the needs of consumers.

The Forum also hosted a panel on " Perspective of Trade in the Americas as a Promoter of Innovation," with the participation of Francisco Sánchez, Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade of the United States; Bhoendradatt Tewarie, Minister of Planning and Sustainable Development of Trinidad and Tobago; Jose Pacheco, Deputy Minister of Foreign Trade of Panama, and Sergio Diaz-Granados, Minister of Trade, Industry and Tourism of Colombia.

Finally, Harvard professor and world expert on innovation Clayton Christensen opened the day's final panel on "What Countries Should do in Matters of Competitiveness." Participating in this panel were Karim Lesina, the Executive Director of AT&T, Steve Ubl, President of AdVamed, and Juan Carlos Navarro, Chief Specialist for the Competitiveness and Innovation Division of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).

The Sixth Americas Competitiveness Forum runs until tomorrow, Friday, October 26, and primarily aims to facilitate the development of business and enable the exchange of ideas and knowledge to make the countries of the Americas more innovative, productive and competitive, and thus to improve the living standards of their inhabitants.

For more information, please visit the OAS Website at www.oas.org.

Reference: E-389/12