All posts tagged competition

  • BBVA OpenTalent Mexico pitch preparation

    BBVA OpenTalent Mexico preparationThis week I started a new chapter in my life as the Open Innovation and Ecosystem Builder in Latin America for BBVA (I’ll write a longer blog post about this soon).  I’ll be traveling quite a bit around Latin America (especially, to Mexico) and Europe, which makes me quite happy as I’ve always wanted to get a clearer picture of the great entrepreneurs that exist throughout Latin America.

    Right now, I’m in Mexico, at the moment, before going to the Open Talent competitions in New York and Barcelona in the coming weeks.  Yesterday, we had a great session, organized by Finnovista (who also organized today’s event) with the entrepreneurs before today’s pitch competition where they can win 30,000 Euros and enter an immersion program in London and Mexico with key experts.

    As the picture shows, in the morning, a few BBVA executives (including the Data Science expert shown) gave a quick 10 minute presentation about what they do and we all had conversations with the startup founders.   It was incredibly productive and it was good to see so much interest from both participants (founders as well as BBVA employees).   There are founders from all across Latin America including Chile, Peru, Mexico, Colombia, Brazil and the US.

    During the afternoon, I was part of a panel of mentors that heard each pitch and gave some feedback offering opinions about the business and about how, possibly, to improve the pitch.  I was really impressed with this group of entrepreneurs.  The judges today will have their work cut out for them.  It’s going to be really tough to select only two winners.

  • Judging Microsoft Digital Innovation Contest

    Alan ColmenaresA week and a half ago, I had the pleasure of judging a number of entrepreneurial initiatives for Microsoft’s Imagine Cup competition.  It was great to see how innovative and dedicated Colombia’s youth can be to creating great technology while helping out the needy.  As usually happens during these events, it is a truly enjoyable experience not only to meet these youths, but also to meet and get to know my fellow judges.

    We debated the merits and weaknesses of the different competitors.  I had a favorite that tried to solve an important problem (poverty) by applying better information design.  Unfortunately, they had some snafus with their presentation and demo and I was unable to vote for them as the winner.  We ended up giving the final prize to a sharp group with an incredibly polished presentation and they will be traveling to Poland to represent Colombia.  I wish we could have had the winning team train the other team to be more polished and to finish off their software as I think it would have been an excellent presentation in Poland.  Nevertheless, I’m sure the winners will do a great job!