So much has been happening in Chile over the past week, it’s been hard to keep up with all the activity going on. Hence, why I thought in case you missed something, it might be easier just to sum up some of the stories we’ve been following here at AndesBeat.
Photo at left, participant sleeping at Geek Fantasy Camp, the popular overnight sleepover where startups launch their venture.
So what’s new(s) in Chile’s entrepreneur scene? Here you have it!:
- One day incorporation now available in Chile
- National Entrepreneurship Day in Chile
- Floqq gets selected for 500 Startups
- Meet LatAm brings top international speakers
- Geek Fantasy Camp attracts 600 applicants
- Waze, Chilean Government develop apps for public transportation
- 80% of seats booked for StarTech Conference (Oct 2013)
- Video Games Chile selects new board members
- AndesBeat new Chile market entry handbook
One day incorporation now available in Chile
A new online portal launched in Chile allows prospective business owners to go online and incorporate their business in one day. With PayPal’s and Multicaja’s recent news about their partnership, this accelerates and explodes both the possibilities and opportunities for Chile’s growing SMB community.
National Entrepreneurship Day in Chile
President Sebastian Piñera signed a decree declaring April 29, 2013 ‘National Entrepreneurship Day in Chile’. April 29th is also the anniversary of CORFO (Chile’s largest economic development agency).
How awesome is it for entrepreneurs and the startup culture when governments play nicely??? From National Entrepreneurship Day to the Year of Innovation in Chile (2013)….thank you Government of Chile for your enthusiasm and keeping it moving (forward). You Rock!
Floqq selected for 500 Startups
Floqq, Latin America’s largest Spanish language online course catalog, sometimes compared to the ‘Udemy of LatAm’, was selected for Dave McClure’s 500 startups. Excellent news for Chile’s startup ecosystem, with Pet social network Klooff (and one of Time Inc’s. Top 10 NYC startups to watch), getting accepted to Tech Stars NYC 2013 just weeks prior.
Meet LatAm
Seems that 3rd times a charm. Organized by my former business partners (and first people I knew) in Chile, them Gonzalez boys – Matías and Felipe, Meet LatAm was their 3rd attempt at organizing an event that brought together high profile foreign technology and startup speakers to Chile. Founders from such companies as Zynga, Clickable, Mint, Waze, AdRoll and i/o Ventures were all featured in this event at the Universidad San Sebastián.
Judging from the group event photo, seems that they got the formula down for ‘bringing the world to Chile’. Hallelujah! On the flip side, I am still working on the opposite perspective to build my first Chilean international business rockstar. Let the good times grow!
Geek Fantasy Camp Attracts 600 Applicants!
Remember When??? on behalf of I Love Chile, co-founder boy and I covered their inaugural event (and saw the first 10 winning teams off at the airport en route to Silicon Valley for a month to further develop their prototypes). I think I had to wake up at like 5:30 am in the morning to go film them leaving…lol.
If my memory serves right, no other media companies or representatives from major Chilean entrepreneurial organizations were present at either of those activities except for the media company hired to film the documentary. Today, GFC is still going buck wild in the startup ecosystem and seems that everybody’s noticing with their last round of applications attracting more than 600 applicants. That’s big, for Chile! Luck and success to all the applicants.
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/64774636[/vimeo]
Waze, Chilean Govt develop apps for public transportation
With 10 million users in Latin America, and more than 1.9 million in Chile alone, the international company Waze is a pioneer with the world’s first social network of drivers and passengers generating traffic information in real time.
According to Waze’s founder, Uri Levine, Waze chose Chile to make their first technological donation in the world, because of the country’s capacity for innovation and the dizzying growth that Chilean users have shown in the use of information systems.
“Chile is a social study case on a worldwide level for its capacity to adopt new technologies early on, especially those supported on social networks. We want to make Chile our world laboratory,” said Levine.
StarTechConf
They’re baaaaack…. StarTechConf is coming October 25-26, 2013 and as of this writing already 787 people have registered. If you haven’t already done so, register now as it will reach capacity and space is limited. And when it comes to their waiting list, it ain’t no joke…it doesn’t matter who you know. True story.
While the concept was conceived from a dream that the event co-founders had about a Naked Indian, jejej, after attending their inaugural event back in November 2011, I can confidently report, there was nothing whack or weird about it. In fact, for an independent group of local developers putting together a conference for Chile’s tech community I must admit it was the hotness meaning pretty damn good – from the speaker lineup to execution of the event!
If you have been thinking about making a trip to Chile, it’s a good excuse to come to meet the who’s who of the local tech and startup scene, see some top international tech developers and enjoy the fantastic weather that time of the year. But first make sure you register!!
Video Games Chile announces new board members
Congrats to the new board members of Video Games Chile (VG Chile), who is the official trade association for Chilean game developers and designers. The members serve 2 year terms and work to provide advocacy and outreach for its member companies.
The past VG Chile board under the leadership of Pablo Gorigoitia has done an amazing job in amping up international exposure and opportunities for the Chilean game developers community. Last year they worked with PRO Chile, the export trade association of Chile to get a Chilean Pavilion at the Game Developer’s Conference.
While I am sure it is flooding their inbox with lots of new business leads from all around the world, it does not excuse them for delaying my damn intros to the new board members that I asked for 4 days ago. Señor Gorigoitia and Señor Winkler, you are slacking brothers. I need you to make it happen…looking for your email introductions and official press release announcing this news in 5, 4, 3, 2…..!
AndesBeat new Chile market entry handbook
You want it and you need it….you just have had a funny way of asking for it! Based on the questions and requests (some simple and some rather complex) we receive each week through AndesBeat.com, we decided to convert those answers and that information from our internal ‘knowledge base’ to create a handbook series for companies looking to explore opportunities, talent and challenges in the region.
That’s a wrap folks.
Time to get back to saving the world and ‘making yo’ paper’!
