Costa Rica is recognized by Americans as a paradisiac tourist destiny, surrounded by beautiful beaches, mountains, wildlife, volcanos, peace, democracy, and very kind people. I’m very proud of that, but it has an interesting negative effect in business.
Many CEOs, CTOs, engineers and desition makers associate the natural friendly status with a delayed development in business, technology, professional services and education. By the contrary, Costa Rica among their large stack of business services, is a technical hub, delivering national and international services in software consultancy, development, implementation, deployment, data centers, networking consultancy, network installation, media monitoring, graphical design, animated movies production, games development, sound production, artificial intelligence, big data engineers, call centers, digital marketing and a solid startup ecosystem. How is this possible? Costa Rica started his IT career more than 40 years ago, with a rapid growing since 2000.
In fact, some of its major engineers nowadays are:
– Computer Science
– Software
– Electronic
– Industrial Design
– Electromechanical
– Materials
– Biotechnology
– Animation
– Network
– Communications
– Medical
– Nanotechnology, among many others
By 2014, Costa Rica reach;
– More than 600 information technology firms registered, 800+ estimated
– Company’s average age of 10 years
– Most of the current firms were founded at the beginnings of the year 2000
– The 74% are located in San José, the capital
– The 52% of the companies does software development
– Another significant 12% does multimedia and digital animation
– Small business between 20 to 60 employees
– Large national and international companies within 300 to 1000 engineers and technicians
Costa Rica is a small country with a large business value and rapid growing. Consider as well its strategic location, just in the center of America, with constant flights to the major cities of North America and South America.
Next time, when visiting Costa Rica or doing business with Costa Rican companies, raise your expectations, because you’re going to have more than expected.
Every day I become more proud of my country.
Pura vida!
Written by:
Rodrigo Nunez
Rodrigo has served as Professor of the School of Computer Sciences at the Instituto Tecnológico de Costa Rica since 2000 and in various positions in private companies since 1999. Rodrigo\’s 6+ methodology identify the best of best recently graduated professionals from the university to recruit them for Akurey or to recommend to partner companies.
Specialties: Business Development, Design Thinking, Systems Integration, Solutions Designer, Big Data, Internet of Things, Distributed Applications, Databases, Performance, Quality Assurance, Recruiting 6+, Fast Data Access, High Volume Processing, Embedded Systems, Sound Synthesis, Software Development, Innovation Management, Cloud Technologies, Augmented Reality, Recruiting, Writer, Music Techno-Artist
