Testimonials – “First Americas Competitiveness Exchange on Innovation and Entrepreneurship”
Participants
of the Exchange shared their experience with the OAS. This week-long
tour invited high-level representatives from Latin America and the
Caribbean to innovation hubs in the Southeast United States from
March 31 to April 4, 2014.
The event was
organized by the OAS-SEDI through the Inter-American Competitiveness
Network (RIAC) and the U.S. government through the Department of
Commerce’s International Trade Administration (ITA), the Economic
Development Administration (EDA) and State Department.
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Name:
Claudine Tracey
Title:
General Manager of Strategic Services at the Development Bank of
Jamaica
This activity has been tremendously useful. It has shown how each
city, how each town has its own unique approach to building its
business people, using innovation, using entrepreneurship to promote
sustainable economic growth for each area. So it has been extremely
useful in terms of grabbing lessons that we can implement in
Jamaica.
I see possible links for collaboration with other countries. I
see the potential for collaboration for our small businesses and a
widening of opportunities for incubation and product testing. These
opportunities can ultimately promote and facilitate greater trade
between participating countries. I also see collaboration at the
governmental level for further interaction and further sharing of
knowledge and best practices.
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Name:
Ana Laffite Licona
Title: Vice
Principal - Unitec, Honduras
The exchange has been widely useful, especially in my industry
-private higher education. In our UNITEC campus in San Pedro Sula we
are beginning to develop a “smart city” concept, with technology and
business parks revolving around the university. Therefore,
understanding the integration of academia and industry through
practical examples after our visits is very useful and productive,
providing new ideas and helping us assess our progress to get to the
next phase.
I see concrete opportunities for subsequent collaborative
actions. For me, it was especially useful to make connections with
members from other universities in order to promote our university’s
international programs.
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Name:
Matt Erskine
Title:
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Economic Development
This exchange
has been tremendous in terms of sharing best practices in innovation
in economic development with our western hemisphere partners.
We were proud to showcase the amazing work that´s being done
in the United States to spur innovation and create the jobs of the
future. I thank our
partners in Atlanta, Greenville, Conover, Charlotte, and Kannapolis
for inviting us to see their projects first-hand and for
demonstrating how important wide, regional collaboration was to
ensuring success.
We hope this is the beginning of continued viable
conversations and partnerships moving forward.
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Name:
Anne Reid
Title : CEO of the Barbados Private Sector
Association
This Exchange has really not just fulfilled, but has exceeded my
expectations. I understood it was an exchange on entrepreneurship
and innovation and that information will be shared that you can pass
on. However, what I’m really so excited about and what has really
exceeded my expectations is the quality of the presentations, the
exposure to facilities such as I have not seen before and the
networking opportunities. This Exchange was organised and
information presented in a manner that made it easy to understand
within a week how best to transfer the knowledge to your own nation.
The presentations focused mainly on building economic development
and job creation through private-public partnerships.
This information is very relevant to our island Barbados at
this particular point in time. We need a new vision for the future.
The knowledge gained and the exposure to the various
facilities we visited makes it easier to contribute to the crafting
of that vision and it gave valuable insight into the implementation
process.
We saw that communities facing economic challenges didn’t just get
disheartened, but they got together, they partnered, they
collaborated, showing the power of networking.
The enthusiasm that these persons showed, and which
communities now have when they have seen the finished project, was
an encouragement. We also saw that enthusiasm didn’t come when
success was attained but it was what actually propelled them through
the difficult time. We
were reminded that change is a difficult process but if you keep at
it there will be the reward on the other side.
Having participated in the Exchange I am more motivated to
encourage stakeholders to collaborate more to drive entrepreneurship
and innovation through public private partnerships. This is
important as the emphasis needs to be on team-work, as one presenter
said so eloquently “We don’t need to be that one person to take the
credit. We all can take the credit.” I must
add that the value of team work was well demonstrated by the
organizers of this Competitiveness Exchange. Thank you so much for
the opportunity to participate.
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Name:
Dr. Rikhiraj Permanand
Title:
Executive
Director of the Economic Development Board and Council for
Competitiveness and Innovation from Trinidad and Tobago
This Exchange has been very useful as we got an opportunity to
understand how large cities and rural areas have been able to
transform their economies and how we can use and develop innovation
to create sustainable economic development. The importance of STEM –
Science, Technology, Engineering and Math - as part of the education
curriculum from kindergarten to tertiary education, the transfer of
technology from universities to the private sector and the
importance of developing entrepreneurs through incubators and
business accelerators have clearly been demonstrated as pathways for
successful economic growth.
I leave the Exchange with a commitment to collaborate with my
counterparts who participated in this programme as well as those who
were kind enough to give of their time to showcase their initiatives
in Atlanta and North and South Carolina. Specifically, I want to
understand the ATDC ‘Start Up Gauntlet’ boot camp for start-up
entrepreneurs for application in Trinidad & Tobago; to obtain the
survey instrument developed for the
Manufacturing Extension
Programme and apply to manufacturers in Trinidad & Tobago and to
review the Cabarrus PPP Economic Development model in the context of
the EDB in Trinidad & Tobago.
This exchange comes at a timely moment as Trinidad & Tobago
prepares to host the VIII Americas Competitiveness Forum, which will
take place from October 8 to 10, 2014 in Port-of-Spain under the
theme “Human Imagination at Work – Driving Innovation and
Competitiveness”. What we have been show demonstrates that the world
is changing rapidly and to stay ahead we need to innovate through
collaboration between academia, private sector and public sector.
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Name:
Thomas Guevara
Title: Deputy
Assistant Secretary for Regional Affairs, U.S. Department of
Commerce, Economic Development Administration
I think this has been a fabulous exchange. The exchange far exceeded
our expectations as a vehicle for increasing the dialogue between
the United States and Latin American and Caribbean countries and
members of the OAS and to further hands-on opportunities for mutual
investment and trade.
Critically, based on the feedback that I received from the
participants, the exchange went way beyond our expectations in terms
of generating excitement, opportunities and dialogue.
I consider this is just the beginning as opposed to the end
of our engagement.
When we exchange best practices, when we exchange ideas, when we
exchange contexts and develop relationships between various
countries, parties, and organizations, it promotes greater
opportunity for future investment that will benefit the entire
hemisphere. That was our
goal.
We will continue to share best practices and continue to develop
relationships where individuals and the countries and the
organizations they represent will have further opportunities to
engage and, perhaps, develop mutually beneficial projects going
forward. We look
forward to staying in touch and continuing this critical dialogue.
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Name:
Andrés Córdoba
Title:
President of Ecuador’s College of Textile Engineers
The exchange is very timely for Ecuador, as it develops a new
economic model based on productive relations, in which
entrepreneurs’ involvement is substantial as the basis for this
change.
We consider this Exchange very useful and hope that with the help of
the OAS and the Department of Commerce of the United States we will
have the opportunity to develop some actions. Specifically, we would
like to replicate the model followed by the
Manufacturing Solutions
Center in the Textile and Apparel Production Development Centre
of Ecuador as they both share similar elements.
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Name:
Jalima Gómez
Title:
Manager of the National Exportable Supply of
ProNicaragua, Official Government Agency for Investment and Export
Promotion
This exchange has been very enriching. The visits to different
companies, institutions, universities and research centers provided
us with a lot of knowledge and interesting ideas that can be
developed in our own countries. Participating was worthwhile for
Nicaragua and I see potential for future collaboration.
There is much to follow-up on, such as the network of contacts
and support developed, both from the United States and other
participating countries. Also, we had the opportunity to meet and
learn from different companies and agencies with extensive expertise
in their fields.
The experience has been very rewarding as it has given us
knowledge that will definitely allow us to undertake better actions.
Education is necessarily the beginning of the process to develop a
country, and through this exchange we have been able to absorb
knowledge and innovation elements to bring to our institutions.
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Name:
Tamara Vasquez
Title:
Coordinator of the areas of Innovation and Sustainable Tourism,
National Competitiveness Council of Dominican Republic
This Exchange, organized by the RIAC, has been an impactful
activity. Experiencing the dynamics and the relationships between
the public sector, private sector and academia is certainly a great
practice for us to take back to our country. The relationships and
contacts made with different actors are also fundamental, as they
may become key strategic partners in the short term to develop
activities in the country through the Council.
For the Dominican Republic, an important part of these visits
is to experience and learn about the efforts undertaken through
incubators and business acceleration initiatives, so that we may
assess the types of efforts that we can adapt.
The Exchange and the opportunity to share with colleagues from
other countries in the region is undoubtedly a unique networking
experience. 19 countries are here, most of which share common
interests and realities. Therefore, the value of the exchange is
unquestionable. With Mexico, for example, we had great exchanges and
there are also good practices in other countries that could
certainly be developed.
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Name:
Guillermo Fernández De la Garza
Title:
Executive Director, Mexico-United States Foundation for Science
(FUMEC)
This exchange has been very useful. There was an excellent
selection of locations and the interviews with experts have been
very enriching, with great interest from the people who manage the
programs visited. This open and very positive attitude is
appreciated, as it will surely facilitate ongoing exchanges.
This Exchange has also been very helpful for Mexico. What I
see here is precisely the possibility to build on the communications
and contacts that we have had, so that we can begin to establish a
set of arrangements for Mexican specialists come to see the
facilities and the programs that are here, certainly looking to
establish programs with future reach.
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