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Create or Die
CHAPTER 1: THE WORLD TO COME
The first place he visited to start writing this book was Silicon Valley, the undisputed.
worldwide innovation center and the headquarters of Google, Apple, Facebook, eBay, Intel and
thousands of other high-tech companies. I wanted to find out what the secret of success was.
from Silicon Valley and what other countries can do to emulate it. The first stop was in
Singularity University is one of the main centers for studying innovation.
technological, there he would meet Vivek Wadhwa, Vice President of Innovation and
university research. Wadhwa had suggested going to attend a seminar
would entrepreneurs from all over the world attend to listen to various conferences on the
latest news in robotics, nanotechnology, space exploration,
cybermedicine and other disciplines of the future. But the author's main interest was to have a
interview with Wadhwa who had studied the topic of innovation like few others and had
a global vision that distinguished him from many other American experts.

THE SECRET IS THE PEOPLE. When the author asks Wadhwa what the secret is
Silicon Valley responded - the people - so what is the difference between the people of
Silicon Valley and in other parts of the United States? Wadhwa responded that in Silicon
Valley occurs a peculiar aggregation of creative minds from all over the world and
they find there a conducive environment to develop their ideas, "the mindset of
California, the open-mindedness and the cult of the 'different' has a lot to do with success.
of Silicon Valley" and the presence of Stanford University, and its excellence in
research and development undoubtedly contributed to many technology companies coming
here. To verify this statement, Wadhwa asks the author to walk through Castro.
the main street of Mountain View, there the cafés are full of young people with their
laptops stuffed full of their projects, asking from table to table about how
solving software problems even if they do not know each other.

POTENTIAL OF LATIN AMERICA. Unlike the widespread belief in circles

academic and business, that the most important thing to encourage innovation was
offering economic incentives or reducing bureaucratic obstacles, Wadhwa was saying
that nowadays the most important thing was to have a critical mass of creative minds
backed by good educational systems. And I had seen tremendous potential of
creativity in Mexico, Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, Bogotá, Santiago de Chile and others.

INNOVATORS WANT TO LIVE IN VIBRANT PLACES. Economist Richard Florida

from the University of Toronto who began to change the Theories of innovation,
I argue the theory that concentrations of creative minds will attract companies.
What generates creativity? More than anything, it is the presence of other creative people.
Florida says - creativity is a social process: our greatest advances come from
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the people we learn from, the people we share with, and the people with whom we
that we collaborate. And cities are truly sources of creativity. And where do we
Do creative people gather? Innovators tend to come together in places that provide them
allow working "outside of the rules of traditional corporations, outside of the
bureaucracy, where they can control the means of production and where they are offered
venture capital that is equity and not debt

IN ARGENTINA, BRAZIL OR MEXICO THERE CAN BE A SILICON VALLEY. Florida said: 'I arrived
to the somewhat controversial conclusion that the most conducive places for innovation
are those where the arts flourish, new musical expressions emerge, where there is a
large gay population, where there is good food, in addition to universities that can
transforming creativity into innovation. Success is the ability to find a new
a member of your team to help you get to where you want, said Florida. The conclusion
the end of their studies is that the places where innovation flourishes generally
They glorify talent more than money. And that is good news for Latin America.
because it is a characteristic of many of its cities, Florida added.

THE WORLD OF THE FUTURE. If several Latin American countries already have a reserve of minds
creative, their great challenge will be to improve the quality and integration into the world of their
educational systems and create legal systems much more tolerant of failure
business.

3D PRINTERS THAT MAKE SHOES. The printers that until now only
they printed on paper, now adding 3D printers, which can reproduce shoes,
clothes, car parts, kitchenware, jewelry, toys, body organs and
foods. And this, according to what the industry leaders explained to me, will bring with it a new
industrial revolution that will transform the manufacturing industry as we know it,
allowing each of us to produce what we want, to our own measure,
in our own homes. A good part of mass production will be replaced by the
individualized production.

THE DRONES THAT DELIVER PIZZA. The unmanned aerial vehicles - or DRONES - that the United
The United States has used in Iraq and Afghanistan to attack Al Qaeda terrorists will revolutionize
the transportation industries. Commercial DRONES are already being used by
police surveillance, monitoring of livestock in the fields, and rescue of people. Very
soon they will also be used to deliver pizza or deliver FedEx packages. The
DRONES for commercial purposes must fly at less than 100 meters in height and
stay 5 kilometers away from the airports. Benjamín M. Trapnell professor of the
University of North Dakota predicts that unmanned aircraft even
they will replace manned airplanes for commercial flights. Students of Freire
University of Berlin in Germany has already created an unmanned helicopter for delivery.
pizza delivery, the video was uploaded to YouTube and ends with the Mexican investigator
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Raúl Rojas González and the students when the helicopter arrives with the pizza at the
university at an outdoor table.

THE DRIVERLESS CARS. If I hadn't seen Google's driverless car with my

own eyes, I would not have believed it. But a demonstration with the Toyota Prius with a
small control tower on its roof with Google technology that I saw in Silicon Valley
convention that it is very likely that in the next decade we will see more and more of this type of
cars on the streets of our cities. Brad Templeton, a member of the team that is
developing Google's self-driving car, I explained that the main reason for
that this vehicle will prevail is that it is much safer. For example, cars without
drivers will reduce accidents by 90% and decrease the number of vehicles in the
Street. Very soon, the driverless car will change the face of large cities.
allowing for other uses of the current parking lots and perhaps help
largely the problem of traffic.

SELF-HEALING MATERIALS. Self-healing means that they repair themselves and

that therefore will be able to extend the lifespan of many products, reducing the
need to replace them or send them for repair. A group of researchers led by
by Zhenan Bao from Stanford University has created a flexible, conductive material
of electricity and pressure-sensitive, based on polymers that can be developed
for use in robot frames or human prosthetics According to José Giulani of Autonomic
Materials, a company that is working on layers of anti-corrosive materials.
sustainable cars invented by the University of Illinois, their products are already being
used in the shipping industry. The anti-corrosive layer contains two microcapsules one of
which contains a self-healing component and the other a catalyst. When the layer
if the anti-corrosive is damaged, the microcapsules break and their contents come into contact,
repairing the damages.

INTERNET OF THINGS. Almost all the devices around us, from the devices of
kitchen to clothing, soon they will have microchips and will be connected to each other through
from a new ecosystem called 'Internet of Things.' At this point, they show us that
Until the lid of the Remedies, they will have a chip that will signal when that bottle is not
it has opened on several days and therefore the patient has not taken their medicines in
With few words, we will be monitored by our devices or objects.

BIG DATA: THE GOLD OF THE 21ST CENTURY. Information will be a source of power and money, with the
expansion of the internet, social networks, and the internet of things will bring more data in the
cyberspace about each one of us, what clothes we like, what food, what music
we listen, who our friends are, the political position we have and our
sexual preferences. Every time we use our cards, we leave a message in
facebook or we simply turn on the GPS, we leave a trace with our data in the
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cyberspace, the position and the Procedure of this data-BIG data- will have a huge
value for those who want to sell us anything.

WATCHES THAT TAKE THE HEART RATE. In this chapter, the author shows us the thousands
of applications and devices to measure heart rate and blood pressure, as a first
instance teaches us that nowadays there are watches and bracelets that allow the
health measurements. The different related companies have already released devices that
connected to the phone they give you a medical assessment. Previously, doctors prescribed us
remedies, now they are going to prescribe applications to know which remedies can be
to take.

THE SUPERCOMPUTER THAT PRESCRIBES MEDICINES The Deep Blue computer by

Watson defeated two other finalists of the question and answer program
television Jeopardy, the most remarkable thing about this victory was that he was answering the questions of the
a conductor without being connected to the internet, Watson had stored more on his hard drive
of 200 million pages of information of all kinds, including several encyclopedias and
I could answer questions just by accessing the database. And shortly after its
In Las Vegas presentation, Watson launched the first application with uses.
doctors, aimed at processing information for lung cancer patients. Although
Currently, there are already many applications for medical consultations, Watson claims.
that this supercomputer can process much more information faster
since it stores accumulated data from millions of patients.

PERSONALIZED EDUCATION. Thanks to technology and the studies that are now being done
Through the internet, the schools of the future will operate exactly the opposite way: instead of
that children go to school and do homework at home, children will now study in
house – with videos and interactive computer programs – and then they will do their homework in the
school, working as a team with their classmates and with the guidance of the teacher.
The so-called flipped schools are already proliferating in the United States.
United, after the discovery that children learn much more if they can only
study by watching videos and doing practical exercises on their computers.

JOURNEYS TO THE STARS. The space exploration that remained stagnant for 50 years
after the Apollo 11 mission, it will soon be news again and very likely
will give a lot to talk about. Several leaders in the space industry predict flights to a
asteroid and Mars within previously set deadlines. With space tourism companies like
Virgin Galactic of British tycoon Sir Richard Branson, Space X and other companies, with
NASA's assistance that has allocated 6 billion dollars to help develop the
private space industry, they are building "reusable" spacecraft that in
Places of destruction like those of before can be used many times.
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THE AGE OF ABUNDANCE? The 'techno-utopians' think that the last decade has barely
it is a small preview of the progress that is coming. Humanity is entering into a
period of radical transformation, in which technology has the potential to improve
substantially the living standards of every man, woman, or child. But skeptics
They believe that technology will not improve the quality of life for the poor, as the iPhones...
3D printers or self-driving cars, they will not be able to buy all of them
people and, therefore, will only improve the quality of life of the wealthy.

FROM MANUAL LABOR TO MENTAL WORK. Scientific advances will determine which ones
nations will progress more and which will fall further behind. This is because
we are in the knowledge era, in which countries that develop products with
high value-added will become increasingly rich, and those who continue to produce raw materials
Primary goods or basic manufactures will fall further and further behind.

THE TECHNOLOGICAL BACKLOG IN LATIN AMERICA. The clearest evidence of backlog

Latin American technology is the insignificant number of new patents.
inventions registered by the countries of the region. As for patents that
it is one of the measures of innovation and technological progress we are in the last
positions in the world. Even small countries like South Korea and Israel produce each
one more patent per year than all the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean combined.

THE CAPITALS OF SCIENCES. The Scientific Reports - research publication of

Nature - one of the most prestigious journals in global academic circles, published in
In 2013, a world map of the most important cities in scientific research.
Latin American countries and their cities shone by their absence. None appear.
Latin American city or country among the top 100 countries in scientific research

THE WORST UNIVERSITIES? Latin American universities are among the

last positions in the international rankings of the best universities. In the
In 2013, there was not a single Latin American university among the top 100 in the world.
none of the three international rankings (percentage of professors with a doctorate,
number of works published in international scientific journals and the number of
registered patents) The one that appears first is from São Paulo, but in 127th place.

WE ARE ALL PHILOSOPHERS, SOCIOLOGISTS, AND POETS. One of the many reasons that
the reason we are not in the ranking is because relatively little is invested in
scientific research, with very little participation from the private sector, which translates to
in fewer international scientific publications and fewer registered patents. In
Latin America is producing too many philosophers, sociologists, psychologists, and poets.
and very few scientists and engineers.
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LAST IN THE PISA TEST This test measures the knowledge of young people in
mathematics, science, and reading ability. The lack of a good education in
mathematics, science, and technology have contributed to the technological backwardness of countries
Latin Americans, to their excessive dependence on the export of raw materials and a
An example of this is the export of coffee. While a simple cup of coffee in the United States
United is sold for about 50 cents, a premium cup of coffee that offers a
a chain like Starbucks is sold for up to four dollars.

THE ENGINES OF INNOVATION What makes some countries more innovative

What others? There is a constellation of factors that experts call an ecosystem. For
for an ecosystem to exist, quality education, companies, and universities are necessary that
invest in research and development of new products, research centers
globalized so that it attracts talent from all over, a constant interaction between
companies and universities, an economic environment that encourages risk investments,
legislation that encourages the creation of new businesses and a concentration of minds
creative people in the same city. But the key factor is a culture of social tolerance with the
individual failure.

PEOPLE IN SILICON VALLEY BRAG ABOUT THEIR FAILURES. Every time

I was interviewing someone in Silicon Valley, and they were telling me about their failures as if it were something

natural and normal, and generally they started from that point as if it were an honor to have
failed. Wadhwa said: in Silicon Valley when you list your failures it's as if
you were listing your university degrees. Everyone here understands that with
With each failure, you learned something and therefore you are wiser than before.

DONALD TRUMP: MINE WERE NOT FAILURES. When I asked him the question that
he learned from his failures responded: I did not fail at all. "But, you declared yourself
being bankrupt three times" were not failures, what I did was take advantage of the system
legal.

THE THOUSAND FAILURES OF THE INVENTOR OF THE ELECTRIC BULB. The great inventions of the
humanity was preceded by great failures. Thomas Alva Edison made more than
1000 failed attempts before inventing a mass use electric lamp.
The Wright brothers made 163 unsuccessful attempts before their first flight.
successful crewed. Henry Ford manufactured more than a dozen models of cars
before inventing the Ford T. Virtually all success stories are culminations
of stories of failures, not only in the world of technology but also in politics
commerce and art.

IS CREATIVITY GENETIC? Innovative personalities are distinguished by being

extroverted, open to experimentation, not very concerned about pleasing others
the rest and somewhat neurotic. Albert Einstein collected cigarette butts from the streets to
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filling his pipe with tobacco, composer Robert Schumann believed that his music was
transmitted by Beethoven and other composers deceased from their graves and the
writer Charles Dickens walked through the streets of London trying to get rid of
above with her umbrella at delinquent children who only existed in her imagination. They
they appear as different and unable to adapt to society.

THE GENIUS OF NUMBERS. The world is full of people with intelligence.

extraordinary, that make no notable contribution to humanity due to lacking
From a favorable environment. Shakuntala Devi, a woman born in 1919, India, was one of the
most intelligent people in the world. Devi mentally multiplied in 30 seconds the
the figure of 7686369774870 divided by 2465099745749 and gave the correct answer. It was a
human computer. However, after her death at the age of 83, in mid-2013,
Time magazine noted that, despite her supernatural intelligence, Devi did not make any.
lasting contribution, the girl became an admirable adult, but not influential.

CHAPTER 2: GASTÓN ACURIO: THE CHEF WHO GIVES AWAY HIS RECIPES
The chef who does not share his recipes, disappears. One of the keys to the great ones.
entrepreneurs, technologists, and scientists to succeed has been, the
collaboration with their rivals, more than competition. Unlike what is still
teaches in many business schools about the virtues of competition and the law of
stronger, nowadays more and more innovators are achieving success by following the path
opposite: collaborating with its competitors. And there are few examples that illustrate this better.
this phenomenon that is the case of the Peruvian chef Gastón Acurio. He is the Latin American chef
more known in the world. He has built an empire of 37 Peruvian restaurants in 11
countries – including some of the most well-known like New York, San Francisco, Miami,
Madrid, Buenos Aires and Bogotá - which generate more than 100 million dollars annually. It is
a visionary who has turned something as light as gastronomy into a phenomenon
economic and social, in addition to a million-dollar industry that today represents 9.5%
of the Peruvian GDP.

Since Acurio invented or discovered the new Peruvian cuisine in the mid-years
ninety of the twentieth century, and began to spread it, Peru went from having no schools of
kitchen in 1990 to have more than 300 culinary schools today, went on to have more
cooking students due to this boom started by Acurio. And the city of Lima went from being
the gray and boring has become a global city, which aims to become the
world culinary capital of 2021, surpassing Paris and Rome. Peru has
revolutionized a great variety of Amazonian flavors, which is why many travelers go to
Peru attracted largely by its restaurants and the originality of its food
that are not found anywhere else in the world. When asked about the
Peruvians today about the main reasons they have to be proud of their
In the country, gastronomy occupies the second place, behind Machu Picchu, and far above
the culture, the art, the natural landscapes, and the history. "If you take your recipe to the grave, you
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"You exist" The most interesting thing about Acurio's story is not the new cuisine he invented nor his
professional success - nowadays has the chain Astrid and Gastón - but the way that
he built his gastronomic empire. Contrary to what the manuals preach
business administration, Acurio did not hide his recipes from his competitors, due to the
on the contrary, I share them with the whole world, with the idea that if other restaurants
they were beginning to promote the news that there was a new Peruvian cuisine, they would benefit
My dad wanted me to be a lawyer. Acurio comes from an affluent family.
Dad was an engineer who came from a family of landowners and had dedicated his
life to politics; her father was appointed minister of Development and Public Works, was
reelected national senator.

Acurio was the only male child of the senator and had four older sisters. He was a boy
a chubby one who liked to eat and eat well. "At six or seven years old, I would go with
my bicycle and I would buy squid at the supermarket, nobody cooked at my house. Neither
my mom, nor my sisters. So I would buy my squids, grab the books
from my grandmother, she would read them, make the recipes, and cook them for me. And my father would watch me from afar,
out of the corner of his eye, as if thinking that the boy was playing something strange." The senator was not
proud of the time his son spent in the kitchen. 'I was expelled from the University'
As his father expected, Acurio graduated with good grades from high school and
he entered the Catholic University to pursue a degree in law, although he confesses that
he did everything possible to prevent him from being allowed to enter. To the great pride of his parents,
Acurio passed the entrance exam with one of the best scores. But very soon
when he started studying law, he discovered that it was not for him. The classes bored him.
they were boring and the studies even more so. Although I had been a very good student in high school,
I started failing subjects. 'Actually, I made them expel me, they failed me in
all the courses. And if you fail all the courses for a year, they expel you.
they were expelled from the university, and their father found out about the unfortunate news and then
he left for Spain in an attempt to straighten himself out.

Change of course in Madrid. During the first year at the University in Madrid, he/she obtained
good grades in all subjects, but I ended up totally burned out, it wasn't for me.
That's how, in the evenings, he started working in restaurants and making dinners for the
Peru embassy. In the second year without telling his parents, he changed to study.
kitchen. He had been lying for three years; when his parents came to visit him, he would hide the
cookbooks and placed the law ones, and told them that everything was fine. When he graduated
he had to tell them the truth, obviously they were upset about the scandal but they ended up
supporting him. After completing his studies in Spain, his parents supported him so he could go to
France continued studying. "In Paris, we did wonders." At the age of 21, Acurio entered
the prestigious institute 'Le Cordon Bleu' in Paris, where he soon obtained one of the
best averages. At night he worked at the restaurant on the corner, where he had
he became a very good friend of the owner. Over time, he was promoted and became the boss of
kitchen. It was in Paris where he met Astrid, a German who was studying with him, with whom
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then he would get married and open his famous restaurant. Soon after, they decided to start their life.
in Peru. Back in Peru, Acurio and Astrid got married and decided to open a restaurant
in Lima, and at the same time helping to create a school 'Le Cordon Bleu' in Peru. His parents
They were upset because they were young, and his wife was pregnant and they didn't have a penny.
At that time, they did not want to create a Peruvian cuisine restaurant. "I asked for money from
all my relatives" Acurio borrowed money from everyone, some lent him money.
thinking they were doing a charitable deed and convinced that money
they were never going to recover it. Nowadays, those same relatives must be mourning.
not having lent MORE MONEY in exchange for shares in the restaurant empire
of Acurio around the world.

They had so little faith in their project that none of them thought to demand a part of the business,
If they had done it, they would have earned millions of dollars. They set up the
restaurant, which they themselves attended. But very soon, influenced by what
was happening in the culinary world outside of Peru, Acurio and his wife
they began to experiment with a new type of cuisine. And the young couple of chefs
Peruvians, who were closely following these trends, decided they wanted to do the same.
with Peruvian food. Encouraged by the possibility of using jungle products
Peruvians, Acurio dedicated himself to traveling all over Peru, went from town to town through the Andes and
through the Amazon.
The Acurios began to innovate in their restaurant by replacing butter and creams.
that gave flavor to French dishes with Peruvian peppers and herbs from the Amazon.
According to Acurio, the movement of the new Peruvian cuisine was not generated solely by
he, but there were other chefs in the country who were simultaneously pursuing the
same address. According to Acurio, they did not open a restaurant but rather generated a
movement, in practical terms meant that as it is generated a
movement, you are not just talking about one cook but about many cooks who
they begin to have dialogues with each other, that is, they created a movement that would benefit
all the chefs.

Its premise was not to fight for crumbs but to build a new world that would benefit them.
everyone. From the beginning I have tried to dismantle this absurd fight created between tradition and the
innovation. Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the gastronomic phenomenon initiated by Acurio is
what has made Peruvian cooks not only do a better job but also feel
proudly of their work, but do it with patriotic fervor, as if they were the
palladins of a higher cause. According to Acurio, their first mission is to develop cuisine.
Peruvian in the world. The second objective is to attract more people to Peru by promoting the
tourism. The third objective is to integrate Peruvians through cooking.

CHAPTER 3: JORDI MUÑOZ AND THE MAKER MOVEMENT

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The explosion of collaborative innovation on the internet. One of the movements

technological innovators from Silicon Valley that have been growing are the MAKERS whose
followers publish their projects and secrets on the internet, with the premise that it
it is more beneficial to share your work with everyone and receive suggestions than
keep it a secret. That's how I met Jordi Muñoz, a 26-year-old Mexican young man.
Who was the president of the main commercial drone companies in the US? Neither the
Muñoz himself, when he was 19 years old, imagined reaching this far.
WITHOUT PAPERS, WITHOUT EMPLOYMENT, WITHOUT A DEGREE. Muñoz arrived in the US at the age of 20 without a job, nor

papers, nor university degrees; in addition, he arrived with his newborn son and his girlfriend Priscila.
He couldn't work while waiting for his residency papers, and he spent the days in
house, taking care of the baby and writing in amateur blogs about computing, robotics and
drones. Their future was not very promising, but that was not the case, their participation in the community
of the MAKERS and a pinch of luck turned it overnight into one of the
most promising entrepreneurs in the US How Muñoz went from few months
unemployed immigrant to president of a company that could soon be a leader
in the aerospace industry

HE HAD PROBLEMS AT SCHOOL. He was not a good student, in fact, even in the...
schools labeled him as a problem child and suggested his parents medicate him. Always from
little was obsessed with airplanes, robots, and even bombs. He repaired the
appliances at home, a habit he learned from his father who fixed old things
as a hobby.

I WAS NOT ACCEPTED INTO THE POLYTECHNIC. Muñoz took the entrance exam twice.
to the IPN, but it was rejected, in the end, he returned to Tijuana with his tail between his legs, as his
father opposed me studying anything related to aeronautics, once resigned he opened
a taco restaurant, but his father said to him, "Why struggle so much just to end up as a taco vendor?"
Soon after, Jordi began studying computer engineering at the Center of
Technical and Higher Education, studied for 12 months until his girlfriend got pregnant.
For this reason, they decided to leave their studies and try their luck in the USA.

I STARTED WRITING IN BLOGS. Locked up in his house and taking care of his son, Muñoz began to
writing on blogs of the open source and internet innovation community. That's how it was
how he came across a blog by Anderson, the then editor of Wired magazine. It started with
an intervention in which he apologized for his poor English and later Muñoz offered his
proposal to solve a problem that Anderson had raised, about how
lower the costs of autopilots for drones made by amateurs.
Muñoz's solution, which consisted of creating drones using parts from video games such as the
Wii transcended and shocked Anderson.

THE COLLABORATION WITH ANDERSON BEGINS. As time went by,

they wrote more often. According to Anderson, Muñoz's instinct led him to discover
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increasingly exciting technologies. Both started new projects in blogging,

like electronic circuits to pilot the drones. After three or four months, Anderson
he sent Muñoz a check for 500 dollars for his contributions, with the purpose of
keeping him interested, Muñoz's erratic life would then take a turn for the better.
defined.

THE INNOVATION OF OPEN SOURCES The web allows people to demonstrate what
know, regardless of their university degrees and other credentials. Let them
they form groups and work together outside the context of a company. After resigning from
Founded 3D Robotics with Muñoz in 2012, thanks to not operating as
a conventional company, 3D Robotics began to recruit more creative minds.

WE HAVE FREE INNOVATION AND DEVELOPMENT. By being able to receive contributions from
volunteers from around the world 3D Robotics saves hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on
research and development of new products. During the day our volunteers are
professionals in their fields, but at night they do what they are passionate about and work for
us. Any product that manages to create a community around it before being
launched on the market has already been examined.

THE CROWDFUNDING REVOLUTION. Anderson is convinced that there is a world

of possibilities for innovators, because in addition to open sources that allow to
everyone is aware of everything, new sources of funding are also emerging
for inventors. Now thanks to Kickstarter and other websites dedicated to
raise money for new projects through massive contributions from small donors
INVESTORS the resources are within everyone's reach.

CROWDFUNDING AND MAKERS: EXPANDING PHENOMENA. Dozens of sites of

dedicated crowdfunding platforms for all types of projects have emerged quite a bit, others
sites like 'Quirky', specialized in gathering community opinions on how
create or improve a product, and Etsy specialized in selling handmade products such as
women's handbags, jewelry or works of art. Today's inventors have a lot of
more possibilities to materialize their ideas.

Stories like Muñoz's are becoming increasingly common in the century of innovation.
thanks to open source companies and funding, has been democratized the
opportunities to launch new projects. In 2014 the drone company of
Muñoz had already raised 35 million dollars from venture capital investors, he had
had revenues of 20 million that year and projected to triple its revenues in 2015.
When I interviewed him last, his company already had plants in California, San Diego.
and Tijuana and had just bought a new company in Austin, Texas. 'We continue to be
makers, and we continue to publish all our software and the diagrams of our
unmanned helicopters, but the new model will also include other programs
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"sophisticated ones that are going to be closed" Muñoz Hopefully, their story will be one more reason for
inspiration for thousands of other 'makers' who are collaborating with each other to materialize
their collaborative projects all over the world

CHAPTER 4: BRE PETTIS AND THE NEW INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

3D printers are going to change everything. This 3D printer technology seems that
outside the latest in technology, that even the President of the United States Barack Obama in
2013 will talk about it, when in reality it has already existed since 1986. What happens is
that today this technology has been perfected and effectively shows itself as one
of the great advances in technology. This technological advancement that can be categorized
how the current industrial revolution is compared to the steam engine of the
Industrial revolution at the beginning of the 19th century, or the computer of the 20th century. They say the
economists believe that in the near future, major developments will occur in design, due to
As for having 3D printers in every home, people would dedicate themselves to designing and
you redesign objects, thanks to the genius of Bre Pettis inventions of these printers.

FROM SCHOOL TEACHER TO MAGNATE. Pettis was a middle school teacher, an activity that
abandons to dedicate himself to the construction of 3D printers, to compete with the
companies that sold large industrial printers at high costs. Pettis decides
compete with smaller, more rudimentary printers, where ordinary people would have
access at low prices; and thus in 2013 he sells his company for 604 million
dollars. Pettis is characterized as a shy man of few words who doesn't like
call him a multimillionaire, for his greatest virtue and how he likes to be called is to be a
"innovative" and not a multimillionaire. As a child, he was a very restless and curious boy.
for fixing everything that was presented to him, and this is how at the age of eight his first
his job was to repair his own bicycle. He was fond of systems and had the great advantage
that his family had a software company. He was not a brilliant student, rather
it was something mediocre for the study; however, he studied performing arts, psychology,
mythology, musicology, and education. After finishing his studies, the first job
what he obtained was as a production assistant at the "Jim Henson's creature shop", a
special effects company, known for the creation of the Elmo dolls from the plaza
Sesame and Miss Piggy from the Muppets.
He dedicated between 16 and 18 hours a day to work where, according to him, he learned a countless number of
things that he has been applying to his life. All the experience gained in cinema he
puts into practice with her secondary school students and is dedicated to creating videos that
they were posted on the internet where I dedicated entire topics to how to innovate and invent
things. The success of his teaching methodology was so great that these videos soon
turns into a query almost mandatory for the common people; given its success, decides
retire from teaching to fully dedicate myself to the design of educational videos, which
they were sold on a large scale.
 13

FROM EDUCATIONAL VIDEOS TO 3D PRINTERS. He starts his workshop, recruiting people with
great knowledge of the so-called nerds, who put their skills to the service of the workshop both their
tool with all its potential of knowledge, however at the beginning of the
At the opening of the workshop, they really had no idea what to do and how to do it, they simply
they dedicated themselves to throwing around ideas until they decided that they wanted to buy a printer
industrial, but given the high cost of 100,000 dollars, they decide to rehearse, rehearse, and rehearse.
until they manage to build a much smaller and much cheaper printer, and
This is how the industry of affordable 3D printers begins. Four years
later, in 2009 they founded MakerBot, with 75,000 dollars of INVESTMENT using funds from
friends and family. Initially, the big beneficiaries were the architects,
engineers and designers, who offer these printers to their service, which
generates great savings in money and time in each of its projects.

REICHENTAL. "THIS IS AN INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION THAT WILL CHANGE EVERYTHING." Reichental

He is an Israeli who was a helicopter mechanic in the Israeli Air Force at the age of 24.
years. In mid-2013, it was launching its own 3D printer for use
homemade to compete with MakerBot. Reichental states that the printers
it is the current industrial revolution, as they are devices that are being used in
large scientific advancement projects as NASA is clearly doing by
to use them for the design and manufacturing of parts that break from spacecraft and in the
aerospace industry, which allows them to immediately manufacture parts that
Previously, they took weeks to be manufactured and delivered to the required locations.
Similarly, the medical industry is one of the biggest consumers.
which are used by 3D printers for the design and manufacturing of knee implants,
hips, auditory elements and others in titanium and other materials including for this is
working in the manufacturing of clothing, footwear, and jewelry; and in the near future it will be possible
Manufacturing food using 3D printers, where similar cartridges can be purchased.
of those that are found in any conventional printer and where we will find the
ingredients for the production of whatever we want to make.

3D PRINTERS AT THE CORNER STORE. According to Reichental, we will have very soon.
3D printers in any shopping center, where we can request the manufacturing of
whatever we want if we can't do it on our home printer. Yes
we want to print a t-shirt and our printer doesn't do it, so we headed to the
shopping center and we request this service. However, this system puts at risk the
plagiarism in the copying and printing of branded articles, which invites that for the next
years in care and attention will be focused on how to combat product piracy
through 3D printers.

COUNTRIES WILL HAVE TO RECONSIDER THEIR ECONOMIC STRUCTURE. This revolution

the industrialization of 3D will not happen immediately, but rather will have some processes of
adaptability primarily by industries, which will make use of these
 14

equipment in order to optimize and improve their production processes. The above indicates that
the companies that adopt 3D printer technology faster will be much
more productive, as they will not have to wait long for the chain of
supplies delivered the raw material for the manufacturing of what is required to be made.

AFTER 3D PRINTERS, 4D PRINTERS. Currently, there is talk of

3D printers, but the inventors are already starting to talk about 4D printers, which
they will be able to manufacture objects that can transform themselves to adapt to different
circumstances.

THE FUTURE IS ALREADY AMONG US. In the department stores where it is sold in the USA.
printers and system equipment like office depot are now selling 3D printers.
the gigantic private transport company UPS has already announced that it will begin to offer the
3D printer service in their warehouses and their forecast is that engineers,
architects and designers be the first to make use of these services, and that
later its use became widespread among ordinary people. Microsoft, Inter, and Apple,
they are creating operating systems so that we can 3D print from our
personal computer

CHAPTER 5: RAFAEL YUSTE AND THE BRAIN MANIPULATORS

Of all the innovations discussed in the book, the one that scares the author the most is that of
Rafael Yuste, a scientist at Columbia University, aims to create the first map
mental to see 'control' the neurons of the human being. For this project BaracK
Obama promised to give 100 million dollars annually; this project involves
many scientists and what is intended is to see how the relationship between neurons is
with this diagnose various diseases, new ways to diagnose, therapies.
But arising from all this neural mapping are ethical questions that had not been raised.
previously in the history of humanity, which leads to multiple questioning of
regarding manipulation and mind control. The author conducted an interview with Mr. Yuste,
he claims that he expected to meet an arrogant and boastful person, but that
On the contrary, he encountered a quality person, with a gentle appearance, bald, with a mustache.
and with a warm smile.

Mr. Yuste introduced the laboratory to the author, pointing out that it contained
various people who were not necessarily Americans, and who were in the centers of
It was more common to find foreigners during the investigation. Upon starting the interview (page 140-
141), Yuste indicates how this project will benefit thousands of people with
neurological diseases, and according to him, the way this innovation would be
used, would be monitored by ethical committees made up of society, by scientists and
by ethics experts. This entire project, so to speak, arises from the need to understand
how the human brain works, since it is not really known how it works, like this
as if knowing how the liver, muscles, and such knowledge work allows one to be able to
 15

to treat them or cure them when they break down, moreover Yuste indicates that by knowing the brain the
humanity will become freer, as it will understand how its mind works, generating
possibilities to manipulate machines and optimize communication.

Yuste indicates that the brain is composed of 100 billion neurons,

connected to each other in multiple ways, and that despite being something complex the
In this study, he states that the project collaborators are capable people and that everything
It's a matter of method and work. He claims that it's better to study the movements and the
connections between neurons, more than studying the neuron itself. And the way in which it
is doing this by showing videos or movies to mice and observing how
reacts its neuronal activity, since initially upon observing the cerebral cortex
from the mouse, as it is a quality performance comparison pattern. When it
They put the mice to watch the movies, with a laser they monitor the activity of about 4000.
18,000 neurons in the visual cortex, and what is observed is that when they are looking at the
In the movie, "some sparks" are observed in this area, the film stops, and a leave is made.
gray screen, and those 'sparks' continue to occur, with these observations, it can be
to say that when we see the world our brain reactivates endogenous patterns,
reaffirming the theory of Kant which said that when one sees the world, what gets activated
they are the ideas that we carry within.

This is what the brain can do when it is asleep or awake; the challenge is to be able to.
understand how these 'spark' neuronal impulses work. Yuste comes from a
middle-class family, he was a bright young man who managed to get into one of the best
secondary schools in Spain and graduated as the best student of his generation, when
I study medicine the fact that in my practice I had to go through the area of
psychiatry led me to become a researcher, as I observed that schizophrenics were
brilliant people, and they wondered why something was wrong, since the treatments that were
they used were palliative and he at that point, decided to change the course of his life, to
focus on research; in addition to this, her father had given her a book on
Santiago Ramón y Cajal when he was 14 years old the book was titled The Tonics of the
will: rules and advice on scientific research and her mother also gave her a
a book called The Microbe Hunters, these texts marked the course of what would be
he as a professional for society.

After graduating as a doctor, I arrived in the USA where I completed a doctorate in the
Rockefeller University in NY, under the direction of Nobel Prize winner Torsten Wiesel, then
I am pursuing postgraduate studies in the computing research department.
biological of AT&T, under the direction of Lawrence Katz. After this, he became a professor
associate of Columbia University. Having already gained recognition in teaching and the
research in 2011 was invited to a meeting in Great Britain where he proposed his
idea (Mapping the complete brain), which was initially criticized, but with support
from a few among them one of the promoters of the human genome project, in the end
 16

there were 5 people who supported the idea and it was published in scientific journals and
brought to the Office of Science and Technology Policy of the White House, which
chosen to be developed perhaps, according to Yuste, due to the need for
The USA is once again seen as the innovator or rather astonishing the world with a great
technological-scientific challenge, as China has caused the American population
He thinks that the US is being 'stepped on the heels' by the Asian giant. According to Yuste.
With the advances of this research, it is likely that the theories of Sigmund Freud will be
revised, since as the theories improve, this leads to
they rethink others and that is why it is always in continuous evolution, What
basically, the goal of the Spanish research is to achieve a
machine that allows us to see how neurons work. Around the world, efforts are being made
conducting research in the neural area, although Yuste's is the most ambitious, there is
another like that of John P. Donoghue and Miguel Nicolelis, each of whom has achieved on their own
that the brain and machine work together, achieving that patients through electrodes
paraplegics send orders from their brains to computers that make them move
a robot. Another scientist, Rajesh Rao has managed to get one person to give orders to another.
through electrodes, to perform a specific movement.

These investigations generate some controversy, as it is not known how far it can go.
to arrive either for good, which would be the goal, or for as much evil as could be done. According to
Yuste expects to have results from his project by 2019, he emphasizes that this work
It is the compilation of others who have come from times past, and that collaboration will be the
fundamental pillar for the barriers between disciplines to fall, as has been seen
lately science is becoming collaborative among the various areas of
knowledge.

The chapter concludes with a brief analysis of science in Latin America, as according to the
What is missing is for more students to go abroad to train so that they can learn.
how to do science, and with this they return to their countries so that it begins to be generated
knowledge internally, since the internet is a source of information
very important but what needs to be done is for these students to prepare themselves like
It must be and generate knowledge, and this knowledge as it apparently is.
can perceive it as a public good and that everyone can use it to optimize it and
improve social conditions.

CHAPTER 6: PEP GUARDIOLA AND THE ART OF INNOVATING WHEN YOU ARE WINNING.
We all make drastic changes when we are in tough times, but very few have the
wisdom to innovate when things are going well. Guardiola has the great merit of having
perfected the art of incremental innovation, building on everything that existed
inherited. Many companies and individuals should follow Guardiola's example, of
innovate while they are winning. Cruyff introduced a playing philosophy that guided the
Barcelona, its successors and Guardiola changed tactics and styles, but (as they do
 17

many successful companies) made constant changes without abandoning a philosophy

rector. Total football.

Cruyff has a famous quote: 'if you have the ball, your opponent doesn't have it and cannot'
sometimes it puts it as 'Until the day football starts being played with two
balls, I always want to have the ball, because if I have it, you won't have it
Guardiola has followed the philosophy with absolute determination and says, 'I want the ball.'
for me, and if the opponent has it, I am going to take it away. Let him know that I am going to take it away and that
I go for him.” Another innovation perfected by Guardiola is to always have a player
free so that I could receive the ball. "Every team is designed to be able to receive the
ball and keep it constantly. And in order to constantly pass the ball and have
always have someone free, you must have superiority in the midfield. The fact that
Guardiola was a skinny player, not very physical, which made him develop his mind more than
to other players, I had to be smart, if I didn't have the physical power of others, I needed a lot
technique, move the ball quickly, avoid and collide, have a good vision, develop
the necessary capacity to capture any detail, fixing in the retina the position of the
friends, explains Cruyff.

In 2008, FC Barcelona needed a strong hand, someone to impose discipline.

In the team, the players had no discipline and were losing games; they were on the decline.
Laporta, the then president of Barcelona, chose Guardiola as a replacement for
Rijkaard, partly because he was more in tune with the club and it would be cheaper.
Guardiola conveyed his philosophy to the team, he would forgive mistakes, but he would not forgive them.
not give one hundred percent of his effort, would always be willing to talk with whoever
I would like about professional and personal topics. Everyone should understand that they could give.
much more of themselves as a team than as individuals, the team would be guided by the philosophy
of the offensive game.

To ensure you have an effective organization, I HIRE physical trainers.

nutritionists, physiotherapists, technical assistants, player assistants and
analysts who will evaluate the matches. The only constant of their method is to study
carefully studying the rival team, analyzing their weak points, the tactic consists of
detect what they do and from there, adapt the tasks to the players. I was trying to
to convey to the players the idea that they had to correct the mistakes, that every failure
one can learn many things. They didn't lose 'because football is like that' but because
own mistakes and the virtues of the opponent.

For Guardiola, as for any business, planning is essential; it must be addressed.

not leaving anything to chance. Sports competition is a game of strategies, where each
The technician plans how to use the weapons at their disposal in the most efficient way.
Maximum happiness does not consist only in winning, but in achieving that things happened as they should.
he had planned them, that would allow him to corroborate that he was doing things right and it
 18

it helps to keep winning. And when it doesn't happen, it's because there is a mistake or because
they had imagined something that did not go.

The triumph was the crowning achievement of a well-executed plan, which after each triumph would emerge.
to all his team on the field, not just footballers, Messi was as important as
the last physiotherapist. And when they lost, Guardiola took full responsibility,
he congratulated the opponent and said -Today they were better than us- Guardiola always...
he maintained within Cruyff's 'total football', but introduced some changes, the main one
it was to strengthen the defense, I instructed all the players to go back to look for the ball at their
area when the opponent was attacking, the idea was that if they lost the ball they had to
get it back quickly, every time a player stole the ball from them the two players
they should recover it closer, preventing short passes, closing spaces and
cornering the opponent. Everyone attacked and everyone defended "In total football of
Guardiola, the opponent doesn't know who plays in which position, it's a technique to
to outsmart the opponent.

Guardiola's approach was to make continuous changes; his great innovation was to have a system.
totally dynamic, with the philosophy and DNA of the team (False 9). According to Guardiola for
to motivate your team, you had to give a different, individual treatment to each one of them
players, because each person is different and reacts differently to both the
stimuli as punishments. The work consists of bringing out the best in people and it is difficult
because each one is different, not everyone is the same and not everyone has to be treated the same
the same way, but with the same respect. We need to find what to say to him or what to do to him or
how to deceive each one or how to seduce him so that in the end you can bring him to your ground and
bring out the best in him. Mascherano highlights Guardiola's work as a leader with the
you can talk about anything, it spreads the way of living football, it makes
you get up every day and feel that what you do is worthwhile, that training is the most important thing and the
normal, and what corresponds to your professional and human realization, that everything
One must earn it with effort and talent.

In the topic of leadership, Guardiola says that players are not stupid, that if they see you
they capture the doubt instantly. And when you are going to talk to them, you have to do it because they already
You are clear about what you are going to tell them and the way things are going to be done. Jorge Valdano
Argentine former player and coach who managed Real Madrid claims that Guardiola is
the Steve Jobs of football, because he has introduced more innovations than anyone else. It is a
innovative, a creator, a man of high emotion, brave, lover of beauty
in his work, which constantly surprises his rivals with new ideas. That is the
The lesson Guardiola leaves for all companies or individuals is that we must innovate.
when winning, study the competitors and anticipate the changes that occur
They come, companies have failed and disappeared due to not having INVESTED enough money.
and time to renew itself. HE WHO STAYS DOING THE SAME THING ALWAYS, IN THE LONG RUN BECOMES
FALLS BEHIND.
 19

CHAPTER 7: BRANSON, MUSK, KARGIEMAN AND THE ART OF REINVENTING ONESELF Mr. Richard
British magnate and adventurer Branson, millionaire with 4.6 billion dollars; challenges
various premises about business success. Branson, with over 400 companies, states 'if
we would not have reinvented ourselves, we would not have survived.” I built hundreds of
companies under the Virgin brand: record label Virgin Records, airline Virgin Atlantic among
Others; he had a goal of starting the era of space tourism, his ship Space Ship Two was
twice the size of its predecessor measured 18 meters; Branson began selling tickets
at 200,000 dollars, in 2013, 600 people already registered to go out of orbit for 2 to 3 hours with
a brief walk or float on Mars. Not only the purpose of taking people into space,
also placing satellites in space, lowering the costs of telephone calls and
internet, is one of its purposes.

Branson promotes his flights, not only for scientific exploration, but also as a
potential for salvation for all humanity. We must colonize other planets
as soon as possible, because at any moment a giant meteorite could collide with the Earth
and destroy us; Branson asserts. Branson started from scratch, he began very young
producing magazines, battling with his dyslexia; he published his magazine Student, then he
decided to print a record edition of 100,000 copies with a flexidisc as a gift.
Branson's career was a roller coaster of successes and failures, but for the entrepreneur
fear does not exist.

I create companies that then don't work like for example Virgin Cola, but for him it is
it is more important to get up quickly after falling and if the business had no future
passing to the next. The name Virgin comes from the fact that they had no experience in
record industry: they were completely inexperienced in the field, and within a few months Branson
had opened 14 record stores in Great Britain, moved from selling records by mail to the
record stores and the record label. At 20 years old, the police discovers him in the trap of
selling records brought from abroad without paying customs fees and goes to jail, gets out of there
paying a bond, at 21 years old his companies are already bankrupt and he has a debt of
the fines I owed for 45,000 British pounds.

Then Branson realized that the company People Express was not doing very well.
and it would be easier to compete with him, that's how Virgin did a test flight with
a ship, but one of its engines exploded while sucking in a flock of
birds, things that can happen to anyone, to top it off the company still not
he had insurance and the bank was already at its limit, he gets subsidiary backups
foreigners to get out of this.

The Virgin group of companies already had: Virgin Records, Virgin Atlantic, among others a
clothing company, bar chain, and a real estate business at the age of 33.
Brandon also wanted to break records in the sports field, he didn't care if something came up.
 20

bad, like the storm that damages the sailboat trying to cross the Atlantic to
reaching the record, he and his crew in the middle of the sea looking for help by radio were not
nothing to meet his expectations; he tried again until he reached the record, among others like
the crossing of the Pacific by balloon in 1991. Branson said I am trying to prove myself
same and to prove to my children that we can overcome any physical challenge or
technological. In business, it's not that different; it is about making dreams come true.
turn into reality. Like Branson or perhaps even more so Musk was an entrepreneur
idealist. But Musk saw his space company as a scientific project and as a
a much more serious entrepreneurship than Branson's; NASA took Musk more seriously
seriously than Branson.
In 2008, he received a CONTRACT for 1.6 billion dollars from NASA with the aim of
send 12 cargo flights to space, but their orbital flights Space X after 3
Failed attempts ended with the 100 million dollars, the budget for the project,
In its fourth spacecraft, it succeeded, and it was the first private company to achieve the
mission to go to space, in a few weeks Space X was NASA's main partner. Musk and
Branson is not the only one revolutionizing the space industry, this one too
Kargieman produces mini satellites for 100,000 dollars.

Since the age of 9, he began to experiment with his computer, becoming a hacker.
creating a system security company with his cousin at the age of 19, called
Core Security Technologies. In 2010, it launched its new company, Satellogic, with the help
from some private investors and INVAP, although the Argentine government invested 1.6
millions of dollars in order to use Kargieman's satellites for research
university students. They are entrepreneurs who constantly reinvent themselves, who are not afraid
to changes and living looking forward, in Branson's case his entire career
business was a persistent reinvention time and again, the fact of having
reinvented after adverse circumstances saved him from bankruptcy.

CHAPTER 8: SALMAN KHAN AND THE "FLIPPED SCHOOLS". This chapter begins with the story of
Salman Khan, a man who has revolutionized the world of education with his videos and exercises
free educational resources on the internet. He is a social innovator whose mission as an entrepreneur is
help the poor around the world. Time magazine included him in its list of the 100 people
most influential in the world and Forbes magazine highlighted him as the pioneer of education in the century
XXI. Its website ([Link]) on youtube has received around 60 million
visitors per year who receive free classes in mathematics, algebra, history, and others
subjects in 28 languages, it has also been imposed throughout the traditional education system of
USA and in other countries around the world. Khan has become the flipped schools, or 'flipped schools'
"reverse," in which young people instead of studying at school and doing homework at home,
They study at home with interactive videos and do their homework at school, with the help of their
teachers. What motivates Khan is to radically change the way children learn in
the school and thus improve the world.
 21

The mission of your organization is to provide first-class free education for everyone in
any place in the world. Khan graduated from four degrees at the best universities in the
world. He obtained degrees in mathematics, electronic engineering, and computer science.
in Massachusetts. Master's degrees in computer science and business administration. After receiving his
four degrees from MIT and Harvard, Khan began working at Wohl Capital Management in a
hedge fund, becoming an intellectual challenge and learning how the
the world of investments. Khan Academy is sustained by philanthropic donations and by
the significant funds from the Gates, Google, Netflix, Ann and John Doerr, Carlos Foundations
Slim among others, who see this as part of their philanthropic contribution to education. Every beginning
In the year 2004 when Khan started giving lessons to his cousin over the phone who improved with his
performance in classes and that's how the news began to circulate in the family.

In 2006, a friend suggested that he turn his classes into videos so that he could
upload them on the internet to Youtube and make their contents available to all their cousins. Just like
decided to give it a try and created his first two videos on algebra and pre-algebra concepts and
for 3 years he worked on improving the videos and creating educational software. His
The first major donation came from Ann Doerr, the wife of John Doerr, a billionaire who
he had made his fortune as a venture capitalist in technology companies, who sent him
initially 10,000 dollars and after a meeting with Ann, she understood her mission and sent him
100 thousand dollars to be able to financially support himself in his organization. In the year 2010.
Bill Gates announced his donation to Khan of 1.5 million dollars. Google donated 2 million.
dollars and Khan Academy began to receive worldwide attention. By the end of 2013 Khan Academy
launched its website in Spanish, with practically all its videos, practical exercises, and tables
of progress translated into Spanish. Khan believes that the teacher is the most important element.
From all this process, Khan Academy is a tool to enhance physical school.
not to replace it. What allows all this technology is that the teacher can dedicate all
time for human interaction, detect at what level the students are, if they are doing well and which ones
they have difficulties.

CHAPTER 9: ZOLEZZI, VON AHN AND THE SOCIAL INNOVATORS TECHNOLOGY MUST REACH
THE MOST NEEDY.

Alfredo Zolezzi, Chilean industrial designer, after dedicating himself to one of his inventions that
It was a system that converted solid oil to liquid oil, in 2010 he invented a system of
water purification, where it converted contaminated water into drinking water. Its
the goal was to help the 780 million people around the world who currently only
they receive contaminated water and the 250 million people who do not have sanitation services.

SACALLAN 'AT FIRST, I THOUGHT HE WAS CRAZY' The first reaction of Scallan after hearing the
Zolezzi's story in his office was one of skepticism and distrust. Scallan could not help but...
wondering if Zolezzi was a world-class innovator who had invented a technology of
1.5 billion dollars to transform oil, or if he was a mythomaniac or a liar.
Scallan asked Zolezzi for documentation that proved what he was commenting about the project.
 22

a few days later, Olezzi sent the documents to the Avina Foundation and indeed the lawyer of
Callan concluded that everything was real.

THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL VALIDATION The Avina Foundation decided to contribute 6,000,000
dollars between own funds and other foundations for the early stages. The goal was to have
the international certification from NSF (National Sanitation Foundation) where it will certify that the
water produced by the Zolezzi device was potable and in fact, the NSF found no
bacteria and viruses in water.

THE NEW MODEL OF SOCIAL INNOVATION With the help of the Avina Foundation, Zolezzi created a
social innovation formula that would allow access to drinking water for the poor. Zolezzi by
one side would sell its water purification technology for industrial uses and on the other side
I would create a global humanitarian organization to which I would grant the rights to donate equipment.
of drinking water to the poor.

I HAVE NEVER BEEN A GENIUS, NOR A SUPER GIFTED PERSON. Zolezzi's role has been to develop ideas and
then bring together scientists who can turn them into reality. PROJECT LAUNCH The project
Zolezzi started to gain worldwide recognition in 2014, when the company of the Chilean innovator,
Avina Foundation, with the help of the Inter-American Development Bank and other organizations and
international corporations initiated a pilot plan to test the new water purifier
in Ghana, India, Kenya, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, Chile, and Haiti. The idea was initially to conduct tests
before investing millions of dollars in the project installation without knowing if it will really work.

ASHOKA AND SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS. Ashoka chooses innovators with good ideas to
improve the living conditions of the poor and pays them a salary for about three years so that they
they fully dedicate themselves to developing their projects. In addition, it provides them with strategic and legal advice.

Paula Cardenau, former director of Ashoka for Argentina and Latin America is one of many
social entrepreneurs who aim to help the 31 million young Latin Americans who do not
they study neither work nor studies, called "ni-nis" from the poorest sectors of society through the
a company I created called 'Arbusta'.

YUNUS: "CAPITALISM WENT DOWN THE WRONG PATH." Yunus is an economist, idealist.
pragmatic, with excellent knowledge of the business world. He suggests that companies
social enterprises should operate like any other business, but the profits must be reinvested in the
company, or in other special cases, and the shareholders do not receive dividends, but only aspire to
recover their initial investment. Therefore, Yunus proposes that companies merge companies.
social instead of doing charity works.

ENDEAVOR: SOCIAL ENTERPRISES FOR PROFIT. Fernando Fabre president of the

Endeavor Foundation aims to help social innovators who create companies with
non-profit, but often have a social purpose. A reflection of this is Mr.
Enrique Gómez Junco, a chemical engineer from the city of Monterrey, Mexico, is an innovator.
supported by Endeavor and has a for-profit company (Optima Energía) to give away
 23

lighting for the cities, in exchange for them paying a percentage of their savings in
electricity.

LUIS VON AHN, THE GUATEMALAN WHO INVENTED DUOLINGO, Luis Von Ahn, a graduate in
34-year-old mathematician, one of the most successful Latin American innovators globally,
I create the social enterprise for profit that offers products for free to its users. To its
22 years ago, I invented the verification system called CAPTCHA (which asks us to write correctly)
the distorted letters) that was initially invented for Yahoo, in 2003 at the age of 23 when
He was about to receive his doctorate when he sold a game to Google that he called ESP Game.
and that Google called it Google Image Labeler, in 2012 already being a millionaire at 32 years old, he created his
first social company 'Duolingo', a website for profit that offers language courses
free and that a year and a half after its creation already had 25 million users. Duolingo competes with
much larger companies like Open English, Voxy, Pearson, and Rosetta Stone; Duolingo is a
mainly Social company. Social innovators are the heroes of the new economy.
worldwide. Some have non-profit companies, like Khan Academy of educational videos
free online. Others have for-profit companies like the lighting company
Gómez Junco municipal. And a third group has intermediate business models, such as the
Zolezzi water purification company. All these social innovators are helping to
improve the world and create a more humane capitalism.

CHAPTER 10: THE FIVE SECRETS OF INNOVATION.

The shrimp that falls asleep is carried away by the current. In the mid-second decade of the 21st century the
Economic growth reached an average of 6% for countries like Argentina, Mexico, Colombia.
and Peru and other countries that are above the regional average. The great challenge of the region is
drastically improve the quality of education, encourage innovation, and export products of
greater added value so as not to fall behind compared to other countries in the world. Our
countries must innovate either by inventing new products of any kind (which
commonly referred to as product innovation) or discovering ways to produce more
efficiently existing products what is called process innovation. The important thing is
innovate by creating products or processes of all kinds that have greater added value that can
to sell themselves globally and not remain static.

PEOPLE MUST REINVENT THEMSELVES. Not only countries must we constantly reinvent ourselves.
to emerge better in the new economy of creativity of the 21st century. The revolution
The technology industry of the future will eliminate many jobs and create many new ones.
Industrial jobs will become less and less required to perform manual work.
repetitive characteristics of the last century. And intellectual work will be in greater demand
creative. We are in the age of creativity. Where we will work more and more for less.
time for more companies or for ourselves. Thanks to the democratization of technology,
More and more young people are creating their own jobs as website designers.
webs, or providers of all kinds of products and services over the internet. But for it to
to take advantage of these opportunities, we must not only provide them with the best education
 24

quality if not also provide a conducive framework for entrepreneurship and a new type of
education.

CREATIVE EDUCATION. LATIN AMERICA FAR BEHIND IN INNOVATION. A comprehensive study of

The World Bank on innovation in Latin America concluded that Latin America and the Caribbean suffer.
The lag in innovation is partly due to the limited innovation in companies.
Latin Americans that many attribute to the lack of vision of the entrepreneurs in the region and that
In many of these, they attribute it to anachronistic legal frameworks that penalize creativity.
The truth is that Latin American companies launch 20% fewer products to the market.
new in relation to other emerging countries in the world. While 95% of companies
in Lithuania and 90% of the companies in Poland report having launched a new product to
market in the last year. Latin America represents an insignificant percentage of the total
global investment in innovation.

CREATE A CULTURE OF INNOVATION. To generate more productive innovation, countries must

improve the quality of education, stimulate the graduation of engineers and scientists, increase the
investment in research and development to provide tax incentives to companies so that
invent new products, repeal the bureaucratic derogations that hinder creation
new companies, offer more credits to entrepreneurs and protect intellectual property.
What is a culture of innovation, it is an atmosphere that generates a collective enthusiasm for
creativity and glorify productive innovators in the same way that one glorifies
great artists or great athletes and challenge people to take risks without fear of
to be stigmatized by failure. Without a culture of innovation, incentives are of little use.
governmental nor the mass production of engineers much less the parks
technological advancements that are being promoted by various presidents, mostly for self-serving purposes
promotional. Changing these cultures and turning innovators into popular heroes is a
issue of political will, which can be encouraged by politicians, businessmen, and sectors
academics or the press. We need to create a counterculture that encourages taking risks.
risks and that has to come from above. Another way to generate more innovation is through awards.
economic measures to encourage creativity.

WE NEED A MESSI OF SCIENCE, A NEYMAR OF TECHNOLOGY. All of ours

Countries should apply the same passion and discipline to science that they currently apply to
sports and create systems to produce talent. But unfortunately, Latin America has a
a relatively small reserve of scientists per capita compared to the United States, Europe or
Asia.

EVERY GREAT INVENTION STARTED AS A CRAZY IDEA. Prizes can be the incentive to
to produce revolutionary solutions. For centuries it has been a key instrument used by
sovereigns who sought to resolve urgent social issues and technical challenges of their
cultures. Awards are fundamental to instill the idea in society that something that is
what was considered impossible can indeed become a reality. The idea behind these awards is
that the day before any invention comes to light is a crazy idea. Before it is created
 25

Ansari X Prize for whoever invented a reusable spaceship, no one believed that was
possible and therefore no company invested in that project. But the prize made several.
they will be thrown into the arena. And after Allen won the prize, half a dozen companies were created.
aerospace companies in order to win the prize that exceeded 100 million dollars. The
skeptics point out with some reason that many times the awards end up being more than a
incentive for innovation a advertising strategy disguised by companies or ways
sophisticated ways to pay less to buy good ideas.

WE MUST ACCEPT AND LEARN FROM FAILURES A fundamental key to creating a culture
innovation is to instill in society the idea that failure is often the precursor to
success. One story of that is that of Thomas Edison, the inventor of the electric light bulb.
more than 1000 failed attempts before managing to produce his electric light bulb. The two young men who
They sold WhatsApp to Facebook, before that they were rejected to work at Facebook and
twitter.

AWARDS FOR FAILURE What is shameful for this kind of people is not failing but staying.
sitting and watching as others run away with a great idea. In that spirit and for
change the culture of fear of failure Latin America was creating in 2014 several awards for the
entrepreneurs who take risks regardless of the outcome of their projects. Our
the goal is to celebrate and recognize people who have taken great risks, including those
that have failed because in most cultures failures are punished. We want
reward the risk that is part of creating any successful business.

PROMOTE EDUCATION FOR INNOVATION The deficit of human capital for innovation
In the region it is dramatic, the reason is due to the fact that most university students from
Latin America studies humanities and social sciences as the education system of America.
Latin remains anchored in 19th-century curricula. Whatever the reason may be, the truth is
that while in Finland and in Ireland there are 25 engineering graduates per million inhabitants in
In Chile, there are only 8, in Mexico 7, in Colombia 6, and so on in the other regions, increasingly. That is why it is.
it is crucial that from the moment children enter preschool, they are involved in scientific activities
especially girls and students from poor families.

IT IS NOT NECESSARY TO IMPART KNOWLEDGE BUT TO TEACH HOW TO PROCESS IT It is not necessary for the
schools should not just teach knowledge but teach how to process information and promote
creativity. What one knows is becoming less important and what one can do with what
it's increasingly important. For Wagner, innovation can be taught in schools, the key
is that teachers, instead of rewarding students based on their knowledge,
they have acquired or rather what they know the awardees according to their ability to analyze and solve problems
and to learn from their failures.

WE MUST CHANGE THE LENS FROM CHILDHOOD In order to think in an interdisciplinary and caring way.
revolutionary or disruptive innovations as many call them, we have to change the lens
with which we see things. Instead of asking to solve a specific problem we have to
teach them to rephrase the problem and start from a much broader question. What is our
 26

meta final? In the same way, if as individuals we limit ourselves to asking how we can
By doing to progress in our jobs, we are enabling ourselves to a sphere of possibilities.
very reduced. Perhaps we should ask ourselves what I can do to meet my needs
economic improvements to my quality of life and being happy. Many times the secret is not in the answer
If not in the question.

REPEAL THE LAWS THAT KILL INNOVATION Although several Latin American countries have
reduced their bureaucratic hurdles for the creation of new companies, many others remain
among the world champions of "bureaucracy" and to that we add laws that do not protect
With sufficient rigor, intellectual property the incentives for innovation are even lower.
The more fear there is of having one's idea stolen, the fewer incentives there are to try to
turn it into reality.

LAWS THAT BREAK THAT PUNISH FAILURE

One of the main obstacles to innovation that many entrepreneurs pointed out to me
the interviews for this book are the bankruptcy laws of most of our countries, which establish
almost impossible for an innovator who fails in a project to get back up and make a
second or third attempt. The Latin American legal tradition has its logic to avoid vacating
of companies., but at the same time it creates absurd situations such as prohibiting them from
business owners to start a new venture until the liquidation processes are completed
of bankrupt companies that can last for decades.

FOURTH SECRET STIMULATE INVESTMENT IN INNOVATION

It is no secret that the countries that invest the most in research and development tend to be the ones that
They patent more inventions and those that bring the most products to market. The second major problem of the
the lack of investment in innovation in Latin America is that most of the money is
disbursed by the governments through public universities and not by the companies
private ones that know the market best. The country that invests the most in innovation is
Israel is followed by the United States and then the European Union. And Latin America, who takes the ...
decisions about where and what to invest are government officials whose knowledge and
experience in the development of potentially marketable products is scarce or nonexistent.

THE ROLE OF COMPANIES AND UNIVERSITIES The limited collaboration between companies and
universities are mainly due to a clash of cultures while universities
As producers of pure knowledge, companies are exclusively focused on increasing their
profits.

RISK INVESTORS Investors know that they will never win 19,500
investing in restaurants and that is why they choose to invest in more risky tech startups
let it be. We need to create that culture of risk investment in our countries because the
the mentality of many investors in Latin America is I'm going to give you but I want you to
you guarantee a 100% probability that we will recover the investment. On the other hand,
 27

Venture capitalists know that most of their projects are going to fail but they don't care.
because with a large project that succeeds, they will earn more than with any other
investment.

COLLECTIVE INVESTMENTS OF CROWDFUNDING Fortunately, there are new sources of credit

like CROWDFUNDING that allows innovators to raise funds through
individual contributions from thousands of small investors through websites such as
[Link]. Increasingly innovative in countries with limited access to bank loans
They are materializing their projects thanks to these online fundraising efforts.

FIFTH SECRET: GLOBALIZE INNOVATION. In most Latin American countries already

There is a widespread acceptance that globalization has helped improve the quality of its
players because we do not accept the same with scientists, because many times we discard them
as part of a brain drain phenomenon, a 21st-century concept, the countries that most
progress generates one of brains.

STUDENT PROGRAMS OF CHILE BRAZIL AND MEXICO Luckily, some countries have already
They have put their batteries in and have created many scholarship programs for student exchanges with the
in order to encourage brains for innovation.

COUNTRIES WILL NOT COMPETE FOR TERRITORIES BUT FOR TALENTS Chile and Brazil launched
recent innovation import programs have created economic incentives for
attract young entrepreneurs from around the world, under the premise that the countries that most
They no longer compete for territories but for talents.

THE HOPE OF LATIN AMERICA Many Latin American cities are already at the forefront
of urban innovation. Medellín won the most innovative city award in 2013 for the
creation of the gigantic escalator nearly 400 meters long in one of its neighborhoods
more marginalized. It is time for Latin America to fully enter the era of the economy of
knowledge and we understand that neither capitalism nor socialism will provide what the
innovation can generate for us to create or die.

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