What Startup Weekend means for Mexico

In Startup Weekend Mexicans experience their potential to be creative and innovative. And the culture of cooperation that people lives during these events is not typical in Mexico. How people cooperates and creates innovations during the weekend is a symbol of how the industry was transforming itself.

Startup Weekend is a symbol of how the Internet industry can use the power of cooperation to become innovation-based. Gustavo, a mentor for the Monterrey event, said that he was “stunned” to see how participants were ready to create innovative products, and cooperate even if that meant they should change their original business ideas, and continue to learn from everyone else. Gustavo found that this mindset was a stark contrast with the “older”, risk averse software companies he knew in Monterrey, which delivered software services only using pre-packaged software solutions produced by foreign software companies. Gustavo explained that the older companies were not interested in continuous education, never attended the relevant courses organized in the city, and saw their programmers as a commodity rather than potential business partners.

Startup Weekend was a symbol of the creativity of the Mexican startup community, as opposed to the destruction created by drug related violence in Mexico. Monterrey in particular was hit hard by violence. A week before a brutal incident took many innocent lives. Naturally, the city had a bad image in the media. But in a note at The Next Web titled “Why Monterrey needed a Startup Weekend”, Vlad, one of the Monterrey organizers, explained that the event showed how “there are still a lot of people [in Monterrey] that build instead of destroy”. Startup Weekend participants felt that they were part of a change in the city.

Many participants found these events representative of what they stood for: a young and ambitious group of people who are able to transform their reality and create with the support of their community. Cesar, was candid in his final remarks at the Startup Weekend Monterrey. He explained how he was very afraid to come to Monterrey in the first place, but overcame his fears and went to the event:

“And we are here and we are building new things. The reason why this [Startup Weekend] is important, it is because the most great manifestation of human being is the capacity to build, it is the capacity of how you can create new things.
And the reason why entrepreneurship, design and engineering are so fascinating is because all of them are about creating how things will happen. When you combine those three things, it is when you have the power in reality, not [just] in the rhetoric, to change the situations.”

Cesar, along with the rest of the startup community, found their startups to be profoundly meaningful. While Monterrey and Mexico were experiencing difficult times, the startup community believed in their ability to transform the reality of their industry, their country, and the world, through the technologies that they were creating and through the wealth that their companies could produce.

Startup Weekend symbolized the creative potential of the Mexican startup community in a global context. A few weeks after the Monterrey event, a blog devoted to Mexican startups compared the projects presented in Startup Weekend Monterrey with the projects presented in Tech Crunch Disrupt—a major event in the US presenting upcoming startups from Silicon Valley and elsewhere. The post explained that while the projects presented in both events were comparable in the creativity and timeliness of their concepts, the projects in the US event were much more “developed”. The authors of the post explained while “we’re not that far behind in Mexico (specifically Monterrey) at least in idea…We need to improve on implementation [sic].” The appeal that the authors made to the community in Mexico showed their conviction that the talent in Mexico is comparable to the best, but that they need to work with dedication to create successful startups.

Is There a Contradiction in The Globalization of Innovation?

Innovation is driven by necessity. But the people who are rewarded to be innovative seem to be taking great distance from the experience of problems.

I had a thought about some contradictions that might be hidden in the globalization of innovation. This is very rough, and I do not if it makes any sense. I wrote it to take a 'break' from another thing I am writing. It would be really interesting to hear what you think on this...

Globalization of innovation is taking us to a disjuncture of the innovation process. Real, pressing problems, like world hunger or experiencing the effects of climate change, are being separated from the "problem solvers" of the world: the entrepreneurs, scientists and engineers who live comfortable lives in the West. American innovators are not rewarded for solving real problems (creating sustainable energy), as they have more short term benefits from innovating in 'worthless' problems (such as creating the new facebook) since this kind of products are more easily transformed in cash by venture capital firms. Americans--and most of the world are also loosing the first hand experience of building, manufacturing goods, experience that allows people to come up with smarter ways of creating and manufacturing stuff. There seems to be a contradiction here.

I had this thought while reading these two articles:

• One is about how the world is loosing "the know-how to think of new ways of manufacturing goods" when sending all its manufacturing to China.
• The second one is about how kids in Silicon Valley do not have any real problems to solve, so they are innovating on superficial stuff.

But there are certainly counter examples my line of thinking: I have met Carlos, a driven and smart mexican entrepreneur, who has a social media game company. He is doing this for the money. But he wants the money because the next problem he solves is going to be big, maybe creating a solution for world hunger. Apple has all its manufacturing outsourced, and yet they come up with revolutionary devices. But maybe these two counterexamples are just outlayers. I have the feeling that there is a bit of truth on the contradictions that the disjuncture of the global innovation processes poses to us.

Certainly there is a reserch problem here, but I do not know where to start. In which "site" to study the global innovation system? I guess I would have to invite to dinner to George Marcus so he explains me the secret of doing enthnographies in world systems, and Karl Marx so he explains me the nuances of social contradictions. But maybe I will have to have this dinner after I finish writing my dissertation...

Is There a Contradiction in The Globalization of Innovation?

Innovation is driven by necessity. But the people who are rewarded to be innovative seem to be taking great distance from the experience of problems.

I had a thought about some contradictions that might be hidden in the globalization of innovation. This is very rough, and I do not if it makes any sense. I wrote it to take a 'break' from another thing I am writing. It would be really interesting to hear what you think on this...

Globalization of innovation is taking us to a disjuncture of the innovation process. Real, pressing problems, like world hunger or experiencing the effects of climate change, are being separated from the "problem solvers" of the world: the entrepreneurs, scientists and engineers who live comfortable lives in the West. American innovators are not rewarded for solving real problems (creating sustainable energy), as they have more short term benefits from innovating in 'worthless' problems (such as creating the new facebook) since this kind of products are more easily transformed in cash by venture capital firms. Americans--and most of the world are also loosing the first hand experience of building, manufacturing goods, experience that allows people to come up with smarter ways of creating and manufacturing stuff. There seems to be a contradiction here.

I had this thought while reading these two articles:

• One is about how the world is loosing "the know-how to think of new ways of manufacturing goods"
  when sending all its manufacturing to China.
• The second one is about how kids in Silicon Valley do not have any real problems to solve, so they are innovating on superficial stuff.

But there are certainly counter examples my line of thinking: I have met Carlos, a driven and smart mexican entrepreneur, who has a social media game company. He is doing this for the money. But he wants the money because the next problem he solves is going to be big, maybe creating a solution for world hunger. Apple has all its manufacturing outsourced, and yet they come up with revolutionary devices. But maybe these two counterexamples are just outlayers. I have the feeling that there is a bit of truth on the contradictions that the disjuncture of the global innovation processes poses to us.

Certainly there is a reserch problem here, but I do not know where to start. In which "site" to study the global innovation system? I guess I would have to invite to dinner to George Marcus so he explains me the secret of doing enthnographies in world systems, and Karl Marx so he explains me the nuances of social contradictions. But maybe I will have to have this dinner after I finish writing my dissertation...

“SI SE PUEDE”: The culture of innovation in Mexico

Los comentarios a este post pueden ser tanto en inglés o español, usa el idioma con el que te guste mas.
Comments to this post can be in English or Spanish, use the language you like the most.

In this post I will analyze some of the historical and cultural conditions that have made technological innovation difficult in Mexico. Some have talked that the highest achievers, instead of being encouraged, are often forgotten by the institutions in Mexico. Those achievers-- such as sports people, scientists, engineers, developers, and especially entrepreneurs--should be supported to propel the change in Mexico.

A changing social, cultural and technological landscape

Historical and social circumstances have made it difficult to create technological innovations in Mexico. The educational system has produced uneven results in training the managers, scientists, and engineers needed to advance the industry. For a long time the most accomplished innovators working in academia or government have received little support in their research and development efforts.

But today many entrepreneurs and technologists share a strong desire to overcome Mexico’s lack of technological competency, and have started innovating for their country. Various factors have made it more practical and desirable to be an Internet entrepreneur in Mexico. First, technological platforms, such as Amazon Web Services, or Microsoft Azure, have made possible to create Internet products and services with a very low capital investment, affordable to entrepreneurs in middle income countries. High-quality, low cost software frameworks for rapid application development, such as Ruby on Rails, have reduced the complexity, and cost of creating an application prototype. A wealth of technical documentation available on the Internet, on blogs, wikis, and electronic books, has made available the technical knowledge to create Internet products. An educated workforce of engineers, programmers and designers has been exposed to the stories of stories of entrepreneurs who made it big in Silicon Valley, igniting the ambition and imagination of many to become entrepreneurs in Mexico. These stories had traveled via the Internet, movies, or in some cases, when Mexicans travel and work at global centers of innovation. Finally, several communities of the Internet industry in Mexico, which will be presented later on this proposal, have started consistent, directed efforts to introduce a series of innovation and entrepreneurship practices in Mexico, creating a turning point for Mexico to transition towards innovation-driven industry.

Moshinsky's Theorem: the lack of support for the highest achievers

However, in the past, a series of cultural-historical conditions hampered technological innovation in Mexico. Marcos Moshinsky, one of the most accomplished Mexican physicists, characterized the country’s lack of support for its highest achievers: “Any Mexican that has demonstrated capacity in his work, is automatically a privileged person, and public institutions should forget about these individuals, to concentrate on those who do not have that characteristic” (Moshinsky, 1986). More recently the influential Mexican cultural anthropologist Roger Bartra found that Moshinsky’s observation is still valid. Populism, the root cause of this problem, is “deeply rooted in the culture, in the customs, and the habits that imbue the political life of Mexico” (Bartra, 2010). The lack of support to the highest achievers can be traced back to the period of the Mexican Revolution, at the beginning of the 20^th century, when the government sought to close economic and social inequality gaps. At the time, large estates were distributed among dispossessed peasants, and a public education system was created to educate the masses. But in their efforts to serve the masses, the post-revolutionary political leaders overlooked the importance of supporting the highest achievers. Thus there is a lack of tradition in Mexico for world-class Research and Development efforts. Few scientists, Moshinsky and Bartra being exceptions, have created successful research programs that figure in the world stage. The same holds true for technology companies, which mostly focus on manufacturing or services, and almost never venture into creating new technologies.

A widely held opinion is that Mexicans’ lack of “self-confidence” prevents them from notable achievements. The national soccer team is often used as a cultural metaphor to explain how this lack of self-confidence defeats Mexicans. Many sports commentators, psychologists, and fans maintain that the Mexican soccer team has a strong sporting capacity, but it is the lack of self-confidence that defeats the team on world stages. In a classical study of sociology of Mexicans—which is now strongly contested—Ramos (1972) spoke of how many Mexicans had an inferiority complex, which led them to self-defeating attitudes. Even if these self-defeating attitudes might be present in some people, there are many cultural manifestations showing a strong desire to become competent and self-confident. Continuing with the soccer metaphor, the most popular chant when supporting the Mexican soccer team is “Si se puede” (Yes, we can). In my fieldwork with Mexican innovators I have seen a strong desire to overcome self-limiting attitudes. For instance, in an entrepreneurship panel that took place in one of the most important events for the Mexican Internet industry, the “Campus Party,” a panelist explained that “what Latin Americans [and Mexicans start-ups] need [to create great start-up companies] is to believe that they can.”

A false "Mexican" inferiority complex

Bartra (1986) demonstrated that the “inferiority complex” attributed to Mexicans by some scholars is neither particular nor determinant to Mexican culture, but rather is a condition that many nations undergoing modernization processes have experienced. In the process of characterizing the Mexican identity, many scholars felt the temptation of reducing the image of a nation to a few traits that served to create a myth of what constituted “The Mexican Problem.” This myth of the Mexican centered around negative cultural images, in fact a caricature of reality, such as the lazy indigenous farmer and the deceitful mestizo city dweller, that serve to justify the frustrated attempts of progress in this country: “the image of a Mexican is the metaphor of the permanent underdevelopment, the image of a frustrated progress” (Bartra, 1986).

Challenging the perspectives of what can be done in Mexico

Bartra (1986) demanded not to consider specific cultural–historical conditions as universal cultural traits, explaining how the Mexicans’ alleged inferiority complex was used by post-revolutionary politicians as an excuse to explain the under-development of the country instead of focusing on creating a congruent national project to modernize the country. Mexico is a country with a plurality of cultures, and thick layers of history that have created a very diverse society, drawing from a vastness of cultural patterns. Mexico is a complex and contradictory country, where the richest man and some of the most marginalized people in the world are living together. But to overcome the painful contradictions of this country it is necessary to understand the complexity of reality, and the potential structural and cultural changes that can lead to overcoming these problems. The task for scholars and practitioners studying and participating in cultural change is to be attentive to the cultural–historical conditions of the country and how they were constituted, and the ways in which these conditions can change.

Helping a group of people to achieve their maximum potential will not in itself solve the inequalities of Mexico. But I agree with Moshinsky that creating such opportunities will propel the development of the country, and will be an inspiration for the younger generations of Mexicans.

Bibliography

Bartra, R. 2003. La Jaula de la Melancolía. Grijalbo.

Bartra, R. 2010. El teorema de Moshinsky. http://www.letraslibres.com/blog/blogs/index.php?blog=11&title=el_teorema_de_moshinsky

Moshinsky, M. 1986. Universidad en la encrucijada. Vuelta 120, November 1986.

Ramos, S. 1972. El Perfíl del Hombre y la Cultura en México. Espasa Calpe Mexicana.

Studying the changing Mexican Internet Industry

I am a Mexican, and I am deeply interested in seeing the Internet industry in my country growing. I am also a Ph.D. student of the department of Informatics at UC Irvine.

I am doing my dissertation research about the changes that the Mexican Internet Industry is undergoing.

As a Mexican technologist, I am interested of the current changes of the industry because I want a cool Mexican Internet industry to work in once I finish. And instead to wait for it to happen, I also want to be part of the effort that many entrepreneurs, hackers, investors, public officials, and policy makers doing to advance the industry in Mexico.

As a researcher I am fascinated by the creativity of the people in this industry, and how these Mexicans are creating a series of social, technical and cultural infrastructures to create a change in the industry they work on.

I want to understand how this change is happening in practice, I want to provide a view from the trenches. For this I will go visit, observe and participate with the people creating this change in the companies that they work, the communities that they create, and the multiple spaces--online and offline-- were they talk.

The research strategy that I am following is participant observer, so I am at once an observer of the industry, and a participant of it. Being a participant really allows me to understand the practices that I am interested in reporting. I participate in multiple ways: I talk to people on twitter, post pictures on my Flickr or videos on my YouTube.

But my participation goes further. I am very proud of the group that is creating Hacker Garage, a hacker space in Guadalajara. We hope that Hacker Garage will be an innovation playground, were new start-ups emerge, and communities strive.

My blog is in English, because it is the language that I am using for my dissertation. Also, it is the language that is common for my audience. I guess that the discussion that hopefully it will generate will be in a mix of Spanish and English.