- The leaders of emerging tech companies were invited to train 100,000 Colombians in programming;
- Government calculations estimate that Colombia has an increasing deficit of at least 75,000 programmers or systems engineers.
Colombia‘s government is recruiting startup CEOs to an advisory committee for digital entrepreneurs, according to Forbes Colombia. The new ICT minister Karen Abudinen told Forbes that she’s inviting leaders of emerging tech companies to train 100,000 Colombians in programming, mainly young people, to prepare for the new reality of the fourth industrial revolution.
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Simón Borrero, co-founder and CEO of Rappi; Fabián Gómez, founder and CEO of Frubana; Santiago Suárez, founder of Addi, Omar Téllez, Colombian in the senior management of Niantic Labs and Jorge Quiroga, CEO of BlackSip are the first with whom the minister has contacted to be part of the digital entrepreneurship advisory committee.
Santiago Suárez, from Addi, which has just received an investment round of $15 million, said that in the meeting with the minister he discussed technology and entrepreneurship issues. “We spoke with the minister about the great need and opportunity to train and empower many young Colombians in all ICT issues, particularly in programming. In addition to how we can promote large-scale, world-class enterprises in Colombia capable of driving and building a country,” he said.
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Government calculations estimate that Colombia has an increasing deficit of at least 75,000 programmers or systems engineers. According to Forbes, a few weeks ago, the Presidency of Colombia formed an Advisory Council on technological matters to evaluate digital tools that contribute to mitigating the impact of the coronavirus crisis.
The committee, which is chaired by the presidential adviser on economic and digital transformation, Víctor Muñoz, includes 17 senior executives from firms such as Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, SoftBank, IBM, Intel and Nokia.
