CAF and OEI will work on the promotion and articulation of innovation ecosystems in Latin America
CAF, Development Bank of Latin America, and the Organisation of Ibero-American States for Education, Science and Culture (OEI) signed a non-reimbursable technical cooperation agreement on Thursday to support the Project for the Promotion and Articulation of Innovation Ecosystems in Latin America, which aims to design and deliver multi-actor learning experiences for the strategic consolidation of innovation ecosystems in at least six countries in the region.
During the signing ceremony, CAF's Executive President, Luis Carranza Ugarte, said: "Regional integration is one of the pillars of CAF's mission, so we are pleased to work hand in hand with the OEI in the promotion and articulation of innovation ecosystems to improve productivity and competitiveness, especially of SMEs in the region".
For his part, the Secretary General of the OEI, Mariano Jabonero Blanco, said that "the OEI has a historical concern for the professional training of young people, to this is added the creation of the Institute of Education and Productivity with the mission to take on one of the biggest challenges of our region: to increase productivity by improving the training of human resources". He also assured that "the agreement with CAF focuses on this, since innovation also requires skills, and training in these skills means for us to work through education to improve the competitiveness of our economies".
Through virtual courses, training will be promoted for the main actors in each of the environments of the innovation ecosystems, the public administrations responsible for Science, Technology and Innovation, companies, business associations and entities that generate and transfer knowledge to create innovation (technology centres and universities), with multimedia materials that respond to the common competencies among them. The courses will be delivered through CAF's CANVAS platform. The objectives also include the construction of an inventory of innovation projects associated with SMEs in the region, which will be developed during participation in the training programme.
