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TIC Americas 2011 Opens in San Salvador with the Participation of OAS Secretary General

The Talent and Innovation Competition of the Americas (TIC Americas) 2011 celebrated today its opening ceremony in San Salvador with the participation of the Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), José Miguel Insulza, who asserted that "our commitment with youth has to continue growing more and more" since it is "a bet on the future of our region."

Participants in the event held at the Hotel Hilton Princess in the Salvadorean capital also included the Minister of Foreign Affairs of El Salvador, Hugo Martínez; the National Director of Youth in the Secretariat for Social Inclusion of El Salvador, Miguel Ángel Pereira; the Executive Director of the Young Americas Business Trust (YABT), Luis Viguria; the President of PepsiCo Latin America, Luis Montoya; and the Manager of Ivanhoe in Ecuador, Carlos Espinoza.

Secretary General Insulza also congratulated the contest's finalists, noting that "the opportunities generated here are difficult to surpass," and that "young entrepreneurs leave here with great possibilities in the world of business."

Finally, the head of the OAS recalled that the American continent has a young population, which represents "a great opportunity but also a great challenge, because we have to give those young people the possibilities for living useful lives."

TIC Americas is an international business competition created and implemented for the last four years by the Young Americas Business Trust (YABT) to help young entrepreneurs incorporate their businesses in the real marketplace.

More than 1200 teams signed up for the competition this year and 44 were selected to participate in the finals in San Salvador, where 28 teams will compete for six TIC Americas Prizes: Creative Design, Tradition and Culture, E-Business, Entrepreneurial Spirit, New Markets, Social Entrepreneurship. Also, eight teams will compete for the two Eco-Challenge Prizes, and eight Salvadorean teams will compete for three TIC El Salvador Prizes.

Minister Hugo Martínez welcomed participants to the event, recalling that young people "with their energy, capacity to undertake and ability to induce change represent valuable social capital to solve the challenges" faced today by the region. In this sense, he asserted that TIC Americas "is adjusted to this vision, since it is not only an initiative focused on supporting and motivating them to launch new business projects but also generates spaces so they may participate in the solution of the challenges faced by our democracies."

The Executive Director of the YABT thanked the government of El Salvador and the OAS, especially its Secretary General, and the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) for helping this iniative and added that "the commitment of the OAS with young people is genuine." Luis Montoya, who heads PepsiCo in Latin America, recalled the importance of associations between governments, civil society and the private sector, asserting that "the road to development is for civil society, political organizations or governments and private enterprise to find this communion of ideals, this communion of action."

The TIC Americas is being broadcast live on the Web this year for the first time, at the following link: www.TICAmericas.net.

A gallery of photos of the event will be available ">here.

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

Reference: E-701/11