Hi-Tech in the Canary Islands

I was invited to give a series of talks in the Canary Islands about the benefits of the knowledge economy and why and how to invest in hi-tech. So I spent the last three days jumping from plane to conference room to plane again, to preach the new word to those who would hear. The audience: resarchers in the morning, businessmen and investors in the afternoon. I was really impressed by what I saw and heard from researchers and universities: the world-quality of the resarch and the interest and motivation of the people I met showed a clear potential. Businessmen in the Islands, on the other hand, come from more traditional industries -mostly tourism and agriculture- and I guessed prior to disembarking there that it might be somewhat hard to convince those guys that there were opportunities in this science-fiction, intangible world of knowledge, bits et al. The experience of meeting them and talking to them proved me wrong: keen interest, curiosity and the ambition to play the global game the way it should be played (generating and distributing value to the world!) are some of the drivers that, I foresee, will help to give the Islands in the next few years their first role models and successes in the global hi-tech markets. The other driver?: Gerardo Morales Hierro, and the Canary-Tech initiative. I hope they succeed in becoming the catalyzer for the process of change!

I'll keep an eye out for the Canaries, as I think that a lot of the challenges that we face from Argentina are shared with them, and I think there are many ways in which we can learn together to overcome those challenges and realize our potential.

Posting from Madrid,
EK./

Random(?) link walks

I was just reading a story in GigaOm, about a presentation Evan Williams (one of the cofounders of Pyra Labs, of Blogger fame, now CEO of Odeo) made on the Future of Web Apps conference in SanFran. The presentations was called "How Odeo Screwed up". I think there's value there. It made me remember long talks with jony and others, and it made me remember the essay Paul Graham wrote, about How to Start a Startup. Random links, maybe, but for those who haven't read it yet, it's worth the time!

cheers,

EK./

Google Argentina, old rumors confirmed(?)

I´ve been hearing rumors about Google opening an operation in Argentina for quite a while. Although my expectations were around a mixed commercial/technical team (knowing as I know quite a bunch of Argentine techies that´d been either recruited or in google´s radar for a while), reading from the source confirms only a commercial op to sell ads to local companies, the positions advertised being:

• Account Manager - Buenos Aires
  
• AdSense Coordinator - Buenos Aires
  
• AdWords Associate - Buenos Aires
  
• Maximizer Coordinator - Buenos Aires
  
• Online Sales and Operations Coordinator AdWords/AdSense - Buenos Aires
  
• Online Sales and Operations Manager - Buenos Aires
  
• Product Specialist - Buenos Aires
  
• Client Services Coordinator - Buenos Aires
  
• Sales Manager - Buenos Aires
  

Welcome, anyways, and let's see where this goes.

EK./

Blog season

Blogging season is open here at Aconcagua Ventures.
We are launching the blog -and the site!- where we'll be keeping you posted as often as we can on the comings and goings of the top Argentine hi-tech VC!

cheers,

EK./