I was living in San Francisco for 4 years before I took this crazy trip, leading me down a road with eight people, cramming into a two bedroom apartment in the smack dab middle of Santiago, Chile. I never really “traveled” in my life — other than a trip here and there to Canada and Mexico, but I wouldn’t really call it, “traveling. Santiago was my first real experience immersing myself in a culture. After spending the last couple of months in the pudding of Santiago, these are some of the things that I have experienced within the culture of technology and people.
Public Transportation is Busting at The Seams
Every morning — I wake up at 6:30 to get ready to make it to the train by 7:30ish. I do this, not because I love breakfast (although, who doesn’t love breakfast?), but if I don’t, around 7:40 am the war begins. Commuters push and shove to get in the train as if it were Black Friday at Walmart. If you come from any big city and have to commute by train, you know every morning can be hell. People are always cramped. But in a city where there are 7 million+ people, on an up and down grid, it seems as if there is only one train that everyone takes in Santiago and it is always packed (Please take a look at the selfie attached below). As you can see, people are very much butt to butt, chest to chest, x to x. You get to know people real quick. So please, if you’re in Santiago and you’re going to take train, have good hygiene. Your train neighbor will greatly appreciate it.
On another note, regardless of whether you miss your train, there will always be another one coming in five minutes after. Which is a win — you might still have to force your way in to the train. There are five lines within the city, but unfortunately there is only one train per route. Currently, there are debates of whether Santiago should use public finances to invest on a second line for the main route or just increase the speed of the train to maximize the current line capacity. As of now, they chose the latter of the two.
I’m not much for touching. I’m the type of person that tenses up when it comes to meeting new people. I’ve always tried to avoid instances in the past when I knew I had to hug someone, in the past if I knew you we’re a hugger… If I see you coming — I’m walking the other way… You can say that I didn’t like people in my bubble. That is until moving to Santiago. My personal space was invaded right away. The Chilean culture from what I have seen is very close. From strangers to friends, it is customary during introduction to kiss women on the cheek. At work, everyone says hi to one another before putting their heads down to enter the matrix. For a non-hugger, being a part of this community has been interesting — and surprisingly joyous!
It took me about two months to get the greetings down: a kiss on the cheek for women and a fist bump for the fellas. The more I started doing this, I came to find that the nervousness was all in my head. I still am not 100% use to it (kissing strangers, in particular) — but I am definitely warming up.
Yeah, Santiago might never catch Silicon Valley by sheer numbers but they sure as heck could become a global innovation hub. The current community around innovation is spectacular, and it’s less than five years old! The tight-knit community is working hard and pushing the culture of innovation forward. There are different co-working spaces like urban station, co-work, idea factory and maker space — connecting all these technophiles with one another. The result? A community that is ready to take on some of the challenges that face their country and the world. It’s a small community, but from what I’ve seen, they’re moving fast and opening their doors to a global community to cultivate the type of innovation that people will talk about.
Santiago is great. They have the tools to get them to the next level. Startup Chile has been a great marketing arm that has placed Santiago on to the world startup map. Even though they have only recently started accepting Chileans this year, the percentage is very small, 19% at the current moment. Idea Factory (iF), which is a space driven to bring together some of the most brilliant minds of Santiago, from the arts to technology. Currently, iF just launched and is in infancy and who really knows what will happen when all those great minds are together — hopefully beautiful things.
As for the current internet landscape, according to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Santiago is almost doubling the Latin American Average of 34%. Which means that Santiago is a leader in internet consumption throughout Latin America. Mobile penetration within Santiago doubles the Latin American average of 9.5%. Which is enticing but still not the top contender for mobile ready countries in Latin America.
On top of that, on the network readiness index — which covers four subindexes: environmental, readiness, usage and impact, and has 10 pillars: (1) Political and Regulatory, and (2) Business and Innovation (Environmental); (3) Infrastructure and Digital Content, (4) Affordability, and (5) Skills (Readiness); (6) Individual, (7) Business, and (8) Government (Usage); and (9) Economic, and (10) Social (Impact) — currently Santiago is ranked 34th, dropping one spot from where they were last year. Which puts Santiago in the lead within Latin America, but falling behind Spain (which took their spot at 34th). Meaning, they still have a long ways to go to be a global leader. Though pushing hard to be on the forefront of innovation on the global front, they are quite far from Finland, Singapore, Sweden, Netherlands and Norway, which sit at the top of that respective list.
Right now, all the pieces are in play for Santiago to be a leader in innovation within the global perspective. They are building the architecture and the tight community focused on the hard questions plus they has the monetary resources to be a strong leader. iF is super-charing ideas within all the right people and MakerspaceSTGO has all the tools for entrepreneurs to prototype fast. These are great attributes for exponential innovation. The biggest need from the outside looking in, is seed capital and VC funds that are more “Silicon Valley” like.
Currently, investors within Santiago are not into placing big bets. They would rather take safe bets on safe ideas and see returns immediately at minimal returns, instead of taking the time to place bets that might have exponential returns on world changing ideas.
After three months, I’m still blown away by everything that I see around me. It’s been a blur. I’m stoked to say that I will always have a home within Santiago with the relationships that I have made. Cheers, to the next 5 years.
For more info please check out: The GO Project.
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