By Mariano Mayer* for staffingamericalatina

Being an entrepreneur means being an agent of change. It is producing economic, social, environmental and cultural value. To transform reality finding different solutions for every day’s challenges. An entrepreneur is someone who sees difficulties as an opportunity to create and growth and that, in the way, produces a positive impact on his/her life as well as on other people’s lives.

Buenos Aires is an entrepreneur city by nature, and this is the perfect historical moment –due to the disruption caused by new technologies, the crisis of traditional careers and the transformation of the world of work as we know it- to make the most of this potential. Entrepreneurship is being acknowledged as a driving force of change throughout the world, and our city was distinguished at the Global Entrepreneurship Cities Challenge 2014. We have everything we need to become the entrepreneur capital of Latin America.

Little by little the countries in the region are becoming aware of the fact that they cannot base development exclusively on natural resources. Instead, they need to start focusing on development based on innovation, on the knowledge economy, and most of them are being inspired on the (successful) cases of Israel and South Korea. Such a turn demands thinking, planning and investing in the long-term (just as these countries did), and particularly doing so on human capital and on the development of entrepreneur ecosystems. This is not simple in contexts of adjusted budgets and urgent needs –which are frequent situations in emerging countries-.

The main project we have developed in the City is the Buenos Aires Emprende Academy: a training course on entrepreneurship skills (soft skills and agile methodologies) aimed for those who want to develop professionally, generate a start-up or extend an ongoing project. The program is implemented by the best experts, trainers, universities, NGOs, entrepreneurs, coaches and educators. During 2014 the Academy had 10.000 people enrolled, while in the 2015 edition over 5.000 people were trained. This led as to launch the digital version of the program so that everyone can have access from anywhere and at any time (and this adds another 10.000 cases).

Under this same idea, we are working together with the Ministry of Education of the city to include entrepreneurship as a subject for the last 3 years of secondary school.  We believe that entrepreneurship skills will be the most demanded in the future labour world and it is vital to start training kids as soon as possible.

Concurrently, there are four schools working at the Metropolitan Centre of Design (CMD) that train have been training people on crafts –such as fashion and textile design, haute couture, upholstery and leather workshop- since 2007 and, together with the trade chambers of every sector, provide tools for people to develop a profession and gain access to a better job. Up to now, there have been 7.000 people trained.

Both Israel and South Korea are cases to be analysed by any public policy maker who is into economic and human capital development. Knowing that these countries used to be in a much worse situation than Argentina is right now and that in 15/20 years they managed to become countries of the developed world, focusing not on resources but on the talent of people and on innovation, should give us hope on Argentina’s potential if we focus on entrepreneurs.

Some cases of entrepreneurs in Buenos Aires city

• Ezequiel and Nicolás are image and sound designers. Together they created La Chispa Films, an audiovisual producer advocated to the art of story-telling. They are incubating at the CMD and there they have portrayed other entrepreneurs with whom the shared the 10^th edition of the program.

• Rocío Mazuelos is a student at the 3D printing workshop that Buenos Aires city offers in Nidito, in the Bajo Flores neighbourhood. Rocío approached the workshop out of curiosity and nowadays she is working on her own handicrafts with 3D moulds she printed. Meanwhile, she keeps on training in order to fulfil her dream of printing a hand prosthesis for her son.

• Being older than 50 years old, Sandra Steinberg approached the BA Emprende Academy. She was frustrated because “due to her age” she could not get a job. By the third encounter of the first level course she had already started a project and today she is her own boss: she is into pastry-making, and cooks Nutella sandwich biscuits.

• Amalia Bobadilla is a mother of two kids and has been living in the 21-24 shaunty town in Barracas for the past 15 years. She always wanted to embroider and sew, crafts she learned from her mother: in 2011 Amalia started attending the courses at the CMD and that changed her life. She now dedicates to what she knows and does best: she is an expert using sewing machines and works at a cooperative.

*Mariano Mayer is the General Director of Entrepreneurs at the Government of Buenos Aires city.