Under the slogan Coming back to the Person, and with over 600 foreign participants from 52 different countries, the Congress started with the conference of the highly awarded Argentinian journalist who currently lives in the United States, Andrés Oppenheimer.

It was an excellent start for the World Congress of Human Resources Management. The event was organized by the Circle of Human Resources Executives of Chile and The Araucana.

The Journalist Editor of The Miami Herald and CNN’s Political Analyst, Andrés Oppenheimer gave a clear and simple exposition of his vision about the Labour World that is coming.

In his last book, Create or Die, Oppenheimer focused his research on Innovation. In order to do so, he interview several personalities with an innovative spirit not necessarily related to their contributions to technological development.

Oppenheimer states that if there is no innovation, we move backwards. Intellectual work shall be progressively better paid as manual work diminishes its value.

According to his vision, in a knowledge based economy, lack of educational quality will be the major cause of inequality, far more important that wealth’s distribution.

During his interview with Bre Pettis, who will be pass into history as the creator of portable 3D printers, Oppenheimer understood that he was facing a new revolution that will pose as a menace to industrial countries. Companies will be selling more design and ideas and fewer finished products.

Within such a context, Oppenheimer believes that innovative people must be stimulated. According to the journalist, children must start admiring those people as they admire football player or rock singers.

Among common denominators he found by interviewing several innovators, Oppenheimer states that this kind of people blossom in societies that boast innovation and respect failure. Every innovator comes from failures.

He thinks that in Latin America, it is necessary to promote social tolerance towards individual failure. This is not a new concept. Thomas Alva Edison or Henry Ford are clear examples of this. The creator of serial automobile production arrived at the Ford T after 19 failed attempts. Innovation is the result of a chain of failures.

Places with creative energy promote innovation and talented young people seek such places. Those who wish to count on those talents must address changes and the speed at which they are occurring.