Latin America Advisor

January 27, 2011 – On Jan. 11, the Chilean government officially launched a program called Start-Up Chile, which seeks to strengthen the country’s technology sector by offering entrepreneurs $40,000, a visa and office space to develop their businesses in Santiago for a six-month period. The government says the initiative differs markedly from other top-down efforts to build tech-clusters, whereby states sponsor research universities and tech parks in an effort to attract companies and venture capital.

Will the program’s efforts to ‘import’ tech entrepreneurs be successful? What is the state of tech entrepreneurship in Chile and the rest of Latin America? What initiatives should governments in the region undertake to kick start the tech industry’s development? Is there a danger that too much public money put into developing a technology industry is wasted?

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