EL PAÍS offers the América Futura section for its daily and global informative contribution on sustainable development. If you want to support our journalism, subscribe here.
Entrepreneurship is one of the channels to promote socioeconomic improvements, but this remains a terrain full of hurdles for ethnically diverse populations in Latin America and the Caribbean. A study by CAF- development bank of Latin America at the end of the year showed how stagnant the figures for social and economic mobility in the region are. And how, for Afro-descendant and indigenous communities, it is even more complex to get out of circles of poverty or vulnerability. Also to undertake. Racism, lack of funding and the digital divide are behind many doors being closed before they are touched. Or that it costs more to open them. According to a Google study, founders of black startups received less than 1% of all global venture capital in 2020.
The virtual event, organized by América Futura and CAF, seeks to reflect on the challenges of the sector, the ventures devised by people of African descent who are marking the route and the guides to start a start up or finance it.
The participants of the session that will be moderated by Noor Mahtani, journalist of América Futura, are:
- Helena Valencia, co-founder and coordinator of the Innovations Girls program at the School of Robotics of Chocó, Colombia.
- Daniel Manjarres, Institutional Relations Advisor, PretaHub, Brazil.
- Wendy Jordán, founder of the Encuentra24 platform, Panama
- Eddy Marcelín, coordinator of ethnic-racial diversity, CAF, Development Bank of Latin America
- Paula Malpica, Latin America leader and program manager at Seedstars
- Niousha Roshani, co-founder of The Black Entrepreneurs Club
The virtual talk is this Thursday, May 11 at 14:00 p.m. (Colombia, Panama, Peru and Ecuador time), 13:00 p.m. (Mexico, Bolivia and Venezuela time) and 16:00 p.m. (Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay time). You can follow it on this page, through the website of EL PAÍS América through América Futura.