According to World Bank studies, the low levels of innovation in Latin America are due largely to the fact that countries in the region do not offer sufficient legal security, there is no venture capital to finance innovative projects, and the state bureaucracy that requires so many formalities to open a new company that many entrepreneurs give up or prefer to establish informal enterprises.
Even if we do not have the best universities in the world, or even remotely like the Asian countries, perhaps Latin American innovators can not come up with world-class innovators. In the same way that several Nobel prizes came, it was Bill Gates' question in an interview¹ .
One of the first responses Bill Gates alluded to was the lack of good educational preparation. In short, Latin America does not have a slightly good educational base to shelter entrepreneurs of the stature of Bill Gates and others.
Likewise, it states that in most of the countries of the world where he was born, he would not have had the same opportunities as in the United States. "I had an education of very good quality and an incredible luck as to the circumstances that I had to live." so the answer to your question is no. "In most other places of the world I would have been a bad farmer or a lousy entrepreneur," he replied.
Gates added, "The United States encourages innovation like no other country in the world. I mean the levels at which we are willing to invest, the way our patent system works, and the way our legal and economic system works. "
I point out that the United States is among the countries that invest the most in education in universities, and that universities have a closer relationship with incubators of new companies. In addition, American universities offer financial incentives to their professors to research and market new products, and benefit from a system whereby university graduates contribute to study houses by providing resources for innovation and research.
Gates acknowledged that some Latin American universities have made some significant progress through the support of private companies, such as the Monterrey technology and the donations that the study center receives from companies such as Pemex and Femsa. In most Latin American institutions, there is no tradition of graduates contributing individually to their homes.
The United States has been quite exceptional in terms of individual alumni relationships. I think it will take some time for other countries to develop these traditions. But I think it is absolutely necessary because it creates a virtuous circle where the university produces successful professionals, and these in turn make donations to universities pay more taxes money returns to universities to produce more successful professionals.
If we refer to Latin America, this virtuous ecosystem does not exist, since there is a dysfunctional relationship between private enterprise and universities. The approach of these is to the weak end and in many cases null.
"All of this has contributed to what the United States remains an image for the best brains in all parts of the world," Gates continued. In other words, it is no coincidence that 40% of Microsoft researchers are Asian: as in World War II, when the United States imported brains like that of Albert Einstein of Germany, the country is currently doing the same thing with Asian scientists .
making a parallel with what is happening now in Latin America, we can see that there is no real orientation towards the search for brains in other latitudes, much less produce them.
Ing. Leonardo Martinez Salazar
Academic Coordinator MiMTeam Business Academy
¹ Interview with author Bill Gates, in Miami, April 4, 2008.
Book Basta de historias, 2010, Andres Oppenheimer