Fernando Ortega San Martín
COMPARTELittle by little the world is recovering from the dark night generated by the Covid-19 pandemic.Although economies, nationals and family members continue to suffer their effects, the main companies in the world are in an unprecedented technological career, trying to make the most of the 1,700 technologies that have been investigated in the world's laboratories in the worldlast two years, according to the Gartner consulting company.
These technologies, based mainly on NBIC convergence (Nano-Bio-Info-Cogno), if they manageWe entertain and have fun.
In the latest consumer products fairs, we see that those that highlight are those that integrate in an efficient and innovative way the qualities that come from artificial intelligence, new nanostructured materials, the great capacity of micro and nanoprocessors, andEven from interrelation with biological components.There is a huge market for innovations, but have they thought about how many of those novel products come from Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC)?
To try to find the answer, we go to the Ompi statistics (World Intellectual Property Organization) and what we find is that of the total world patents (2019, last year with “normal” conditions), the LAC region only contributesWith 1.7 %, even when we represent 9 % of the world population and 8 % of the Globe GDP.Really very little.And to know if the technological gap is extended or not, we compare the 2011 data, and we verify with great concern that, in that year, LAC contributed to the 2.8 % of world invention patents.That is, in almost a decade, the participation of the region fell by almost 40%.Lost decade for Lac?More than that, I would say a decade won by Asia, which 55 % in 2011 went to 65 % in 2019.
Are we participating in an already lost race?I do not think so.The advantage that we can take advantage of is that technology advances wave.To do this, we need: identify and anticipate possible waves (with prospective and technological surveillance), train professionals and researchers in those technologies so that they are among the first to dominate them, invest in & D+i of tip infrastructure in those technologies in those technologies, and encourage investors to install their laboratories and production plants of future products in our territory.This is nothing new, Asia's nations have been doing it for 4 decades with the excellent results that we all appreciate.
Asian success is mainly due to its commitment to quality education, which generates opportunities for all, and for very long -term policies that foster creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship.This has led them to be inserted properly in all the "technological waves" that emerged since 1980: personal computers, internet, tablets and smartphones, social networks, to those that are happening today, Internet of things and artificial intelligence.
Asian countries advanced with a dynamic of technological jumps or “frog jumps” (Frog Leaps, in English), passing quickly and without rest, of wave in wave.Can Latin America imitate that process?The answer is yes.
The Organization of American States (OAS) has been executing the Prospecta Américas initiative so that Lac countries can be inserted in the technological revolution that we live, assuming a solidarity commitment to specialization in a certain transformative technology.Mexico has already promised to specialize in blockchain.Colombia in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence.Peru is in the process of assuming commitment in new nanostructured materials.In a short time, lac can build firm bases from where to project to take those expected technological jumps.The future awaits us.It all depends on us and the impulse of our governments.
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