Juan Pablo Lopez is the director of Parques del Rio for the city of Medellín

The City of Medellín is undertaking a massive project that will see two major urban arteries submerged underground, surfaced by a city park. The plan includes re-naturalizing the currently channelized river, and remodeling the city’s feeder creek system to take them back to a more pristine, natural state, adding parks, trees and bicycle paths along the way.

Finance Colombia was able to meet with Juan Pablo Lopez, the director of Parques del Rio [Parks of the River] for the city of Medellín to learn more about this ambitious public works project, and the impact it is expected to have on the Capital of Colombia’s Antioquia department.

Finance Colombia: So tell me about the genesis of the project.

Lopez: For some years now a master plan in terms of urban renovation has been gestating but there has never been a public space trigger that can take that to reality for us. Then the Parques del Rio project comes up, and launching it is something the current mayor, Anibal Gaviria Correa, building upon the work laid down by past administrations, has been able to realize. What will the Parques del Rio consist of? In those strips along the river which are a highway, in some sectors we submerge the highway, that is to say, we take it underground, right? We build some tunnels underneath and then we immediately generate a very interesting public space on the surface. A person who is standing here right now can take a footpath, cross that footbridge to the river and in the river we’re not going to find the highways which are a barrier anymore, but the footpath will continue to a whole park there. And we’re going to cross to the other side that is residential—a person, a pedestrian or a cyclist will be able to take that route without any problems.

We’re going to improve mobility for motorists while at the same time generating a very interesting public space.

That brings benefits in terms of lateral connectivity, but also a longitudinal connectivity so people can move along the valley because we’re going to widen the lanes that exist today. And additionally, when we recover public spaces in some specific zone we then make the urban renovation of some sectors that hadn’t been consolidated as urban renovation more attractive; then, one example could be that the sector next to the (San Juan Avenue) bridge. Those are old industries or workshops that now will have a park in front of them; they become a high target for renovation with housing, with offices, with shops, with multiple uses—

Finance Colombia: A mixed use redevelopment.

Lopez: Exactly, then it´s like new housing but with a very interesting mix.

Finance Colombia: And like that, when it´s mixed use, the lifestyle is like “I can walk to the shop, I can walk to work, I can walk to the store,” it´s not like you need a car for basic existence.

Lopez: Exactly, a reality in Medellín is that the people that work in the city, the ones that work in the houses, the garbage disposal crew, laborers they live in the farthest away communities from the center of Medellín—

Finance Colombia: Exactly, in San Javier or Santo Domingo—

Lopez: Or Castilla, and then they are the ones to spend more (time and money) on commuting. This is where the city´s mobility problems are, and then the city has to fix that error of having grown towards the hillsides. That has turned out to be very expensive because when you grow towards the hillsides then you have to bring infrastructure, you have to bring public transportation, you have to bring all of that up to the hillsides.

While if you concentrate the growth along the valley, around where the metro goes, where all the public services are, where the civic center of the city is, then the city becomes much more sustainable. That´s what the project is about. Over there where you see those big machines working, we are going to bury, more or less, 392 meters of the highways. Then we are going to have a park almost as big as four soccer fields lengthwise. We are going to immediately recover 50,000 square meters and we are also going to duplicate the lanes that exist there today, we’re going to improve mobility for motorists while at the same time generating a very interesting public space.

By the numbers: Medellín’s Parque del Rio

• 44 neighborhoods in 9 districts will be impacted by the Parques del Rio project
• 19.8 kilometers: the length of the project along the Medellín River
• 212,000 vehicles use the motorways bordering the Medellin River daily
• .92 kilometers of 7 lanes will be subterranean
• $170,438,000 USD is the cost of the project’s primary phase
• 6,105 new trees will be planted as part of the project
• 808 acres (327 hectares) of riparian land will be renovated, from Ancón Sur to Bello

Finance Colombia: Then, that is going to be more or less like a central park for everything but it´s not going to impede the traffic, because the traffic will be able to go through underground; and it will also have wider lanes, because that is an area that has also had a lot of traffic jams.

Lopez: Right now there are four lanes, and you’re going  to have seven lanes, plus merge and exit lanes that will allow—one of the problems that we have isn’t even the flow of traffic across the river but exiting at each one of the bridges. Then, what we’re going to do with those merge lanes is to give traffic a more dynamic flow, that doesn’t have any problems.

Finance Colombia: Medellín has an exemplary subway, but during the construction process there were a lot of problems, so how are those going to be avoided with this project?

Lopez: At the moment, we have some people directly impacted, from the Conquistadores neighborhood. With those impacted we’re making a plan, creating a citizen’s committee, for that committee to take ownership of the park. They are the ones directly impacted right now but they are going to be the main beneficiaries when it’s built. It’s a citizen committee that takes ownership of the park and that writes something like a coexistence manual, for example, something that happened in the Brooklyn Park (New York City), the one that´s on the East River. I think it´s the community that drives the construction, to turn all of the ancient warehouses—in that case, to be turned into a linear park along the East River. That is what we’re doing right now in some workshops with the Conquistadores community.

Finance Colombia: Now that the traffic is diverted, how long will the detours last? How long will the traffic flow be disrupted?

Lopez: 11 months since it began, and it began in February. We’re thinking that by January of next year we can be inaugurating the first stage.

Finance Colombia: Well here in front of us we have EPM. EPM also has a role in the process, don’t they?

Lopez: The new company that is gestating, EPM is the partner with Medellín in that company, which is going to operate, maintain, and is also going to generate those revenues that the Parques del Rio can generate.

If you concentrate the growth along the valley, around where the metro goes, where all the public services are, where the civic center of the city is, then the city becomes much more sustainable. That´s what the project is about.

Finance Colombia: Talking about the river specifically, one thing that here in Medellín and also in Bogotá—well in Cali too, the rivers in cities are channeled in concrete, and I understand that part of the project is to change the river back to its natural state, with stones and crawdads and fish and all that. Why did they put the rivers like that originally? And what is the plan—what does the plan for the river include, and specifically the river’s natural environment?

Lopez: Since the 1950s more or less, there was a worldwide tendency to channelize the rivers that came into being, and that began for heath and sanitation issues mostly. And then the rivers ended up becoming the collectors of all of the city’s dirty waters, then they became harmful to people’s health. I think it was a mistake to have channelized them long ago, and to try to take the channelization away is very complicated, very complex; most of all because the rivers have a flooding behavior. What Parques del Rio is doing is that those cement channels will be enhanced with landscaping and plantings that can provide more interesting ecological benefits. We can plant species that withstand floods and that attract new wildlife, but additionally we have to work with the feeder creeks too, right? Because the creeks are the ones that end up feeding the river, so the Parques del Rio project is also taking place in the creeks, improving their surroundings, and lastly up to the part of the river that isn’t channelized, which is up north. The goal is to protect the watershed such that that no creeks or the river are channelized anymore.

Finance Colombia: Is there a treatment plan for the quality of water or anything like that?

Lopez: That is done through public companies of Medellín, EPM. They have invested about $1.047 billion dollars in a water treatment plant up north that begins to operate next year, and the whole water collection system of sewage, with all the piping, and then those pipes to collect the sewage, they take it to the treatment plants and it is discharged into the river only after it is treated, not how it’s being done right now, where the sewage is poured directly into the river.

Finance Colombia: And the Jardin Cincunvalar (Surrounding Garden) is part of this integrated project; it’s all part of a big plan, isn’t it?

Lopez: Yes, all of that is part of the big plan for the city in terms of sustainability and urban planning. With Parques del Rio, we attract people to here to the center, but with the Green Belt and the linear parks along the feeder creeks, we get all that ecological connectivity the city needs. It is a whole network that is woven with the river, the creeks upward, and the Jardin Circunvalar, or the Green Belt, protecting all of this.

Finance Colombia: And what is the whole term of the plan? Is it a five or ten year plan in total?

Lopez: The idea is that it is ten years of construction and then 25 years of operation planning. With this whole plan, the city is looking to raise the key metric of square meters of public space per inhabitant. At the moment we have just 3.9 square meters per inhabitant, the idea is to take that to 7.5.

Statistics taken from Medellin’s municipal government publication: “Ciudad para la Vida” ^No.12, January 2015

Artist renderings courtesy of the municipal government of Medellín

A young silletera in last year’s parade with her silleta

Business travelers to Colombia in the coming weeks would be unwise not to make time for this year’s Feria de las Flores (Flower Fair) taking place in Medellin. Colombia is one of the world’s top flower producers, and Medellin’s Antioquia region is a flower production epicenter. The annual celebration of this bounty takes place every year with a parade and judging of silleteros, people carrying exquisitely designed flower mounts, “Gigantes de Flores,” giant flower topiaries, artistic events, nocturnal exhibits, bazaars, and agricultural events.

Most events are free, but some privately organized events associated with the Feria, such as the kickoff concert sponsored by Pilsen Beer, require tickets. The July 31 kickoff concert features salsa singer Rey Ruiz, Vallenato crooner Martín Elías, and Reggaetón stars Zion Y Lennox.

The Silletero parade takes place on Sunday, the 9^th of August and starts at 2pm at the Guayaquil Bridge, and terminates in the Plaza Mayor—Medellin’s equivalent of a Town Square, where the finalists and winners of the Silletas contest will be featured.  This year’s parade consists of 420 adults, and 80 youths between the ages of 7 and 17.

Last year’s parade

Purdue University’s marching band will be visiting from the United States, a cohort of over 200 students, 10 technical directors, and conductor Jay Gephart, performing in the parade, and at other sites during the Feria. Purdue University already has strong links with Colombia, including programs with EAFIT University, and Ruta N.

Currently confirmed performers:

• Purdue University Marching Band (USA)
• Rey Ruiz
• Martín Elías
• Zion & Lennox (Puerto Rico)
• Miranda
• Zona Prieta
• Haydée Milanés (Cuba)
• Yury Buenaventura
• Gospel Voices (USA)
• Grupo Profetas
• Grupo El Sur Suena Cubano (Cuba)
• Grupo Bahia
• Edmar Castañeda (USA)
• Grupo Fatso
• Grupo María Barilla
• La Bambarabanda
• Victoria Sur
• Trío Barahú
• Yolanda Be Cool (Australia)
• Roger Sánchez (USA)
• ChoQuibTown
• Astronaut
• Tego Calderón (Puerto Rico)

On the first and second of August, the floral bazaar takes place in the Ciudad del Rio park from 10am to 8pm featuring local designers, cultural goods, youth entrepreneurs and craftspeople, and culinary offerings from local restaurants.

Sunday, August 2^nd is Noche Negra (Black Night) and features Gospel Voices from the United States, a choir featuring singers from Central State University in Ohio, Prarie View A&M University in Texas, and Alabama A&M (Agricultural & Mechanical) University. Colombia’s Grupo Profetas, musicians that fuse reggae, rock, and hip-hop with AfroColombian music and featuring African Antombo Languangui and Colombian Pablo Fortaleza will perform.

Jazz group El Sur Suena Cubano from Cuba, featuring Kelvis Ochoa, William Vivanco, and drummer Yissy Garcia is performing, as well as Colombia’s own Grupo Bahia, representing the sounds of Colombia’s Pacific coast.

Friday the 7^th of August will see a classic car show that runs from El Colombiano newspaper facilities to EAFIT University. From August 4^th to 9^th, orchids and parrots will be on display in the Jardín Botánico (Botanical Gardens). The last weekend of the feria features a concert with the likes of Yolanda Be Cool, De Bruces a Mí, Astronaut, ChoQuibTown, and Tego Calderón.

Photos of the 2014 Feria de las Flores provided courtesy of the Medellin Convention & Visitors Bureau

While still relatively rare in most countries, Libertarians are gaining traction in parts of Latin America, especially as people look beyond the old dichotomies and ideas are more readily diffused because of the Internet, globalization, and travel allowing people to study abroad and be exposed to new ideas. Daniel Raisbeck is an example: Born and raised in Bogotá, but studying and contrasting the politics and philosophies in both Europe and North America before returning to his home town, Raisbeck brought some fresh—and to some, radical—ideas back with him.

Finance Colombia’s executive editor, Loren Moss met recently with Daniel Raisbeck to discuss his candidacy for mayor, the state of politics in Bogotá and Colombia as a whole, and prospects for libertarian philosophy in Colombia and Latin America in general.

Finance Colombia: Tell me who you are, your background and why you decided to run for mayor.

Daniel Raisbeck:  I’m Daniel Raisbeck,I was born in Bogotá, raised in Bogotá but I finished high school in the States. I did my college, my BA in DC and I did also my Masters in New Orleans at Tulane and then I lived in Germany  for around 5 years where I did my doctorate, then I’ve been back in Bogotá for—this is already my fourth year.  I’m a historian and I work at a university, I teach. I never had a plan as a child to become a politician, it wasn’t my dream but  having this education in the States and having had a chance, especially in Washington, to see how the political system works, having done a few internships also, as well, having been also in Europe and having seen the political system there, my family is Scot, we have a Scottish background so I still have relatives in the UK and in England, in Wales especially,

So being just in touch I paid attention to American politics, I paid attention to British politics, to German politics, to European politics at the EU level, and so when I came back and I saw the level of debate in Colombian politics I was quite disappointed because it was very personal at that point and still we have Uribe versus Santos, and Uribe, Santos and Pietro, and it’s all about  personalities, this good guy versus this bad guy and it depends on what band you’re in, but I mean, what are the ideas behind these people? What do they represent?

And, as I said, I interned at The American Enterprise Institute in Washington which is, the very renowned think tank on the conservative side, but I got to realize that in the end politics is about ideas and whoever controls the political grounds is usually the political group or the party or the movement that controls the intellectual narrative, so I saw that lacking in Colombia, and I also saw a lack of defense of liberty and basic ideas that maybe you would take for granted in the States, free markets, free enterprise, what you also call today The Libertarian Movement, that was missing in Colombia. But, as I also mentioned before, I think a lot of Colombians are natural libertarians without being aware of it necessarily, because no one has explained it to them well, the government should be limited and maybe there’s a lot that the state shouldn’t do that could get done in public services: things like charter schools, which already work in Bogotá actually, they can function quite well, so that was the main motivation, to be a part of the debate and to present these ideas, which is pretty much the first time in Colombia, the first time in a very long time and it’s been interesting because we’ve had a lot of very positive reactions, also a lot of opposition from people who don’t like our ideas, but that what it’s all about.

 …It doesn’t matter who it is as long as they have this model of a metro system that produces surpluses, that is financially sustainable and doesn’t have to be subsidized with taxpayer money or with government debt.

Finance Colombia: As far as Latin American countries go, it has a relatively free market. It’s not a free market but it’s a relatively free market compared to other Latin American countries, compared to European countries, but when we look at Bogotá, because you’re running for mayor, which is a municipal position, within the framework, because Colombia has a much stronger national government,within the constraints of the mayoral system, it’s one thing to talk about libertarian ideas, but we’re in a city that’s not always very ideological.

We have traffic problems in Bogotá, there’s talk now about building a subway or metro, but even without that it has amazing traffic, it has crime, it has insecurity, it has the Transmilenio bus system, and then we see things like strikes going on, how would a libertarian be able to find success in a system where the government is facing demands of “give me more, give me more and give me more?”

Daniel Raisbeck: It’s a good question, and you’re right in the sense that, when I ran for congress last year, under the conservative party, we’re now creating a new libertarian movement, but when I ran last year for congress it was an easier campaign in the sense of, since it’s a national campaign, or a campaign on national issues, it is easier to make the ideological or philosophical libertarian argument in favor of a small government, limited government, more free market, etc., but campaigning for mayor is a whole different animal.

But at the same time I think that there are libertarian solutions that apply to Bogotá, and that’s what we’re trying to do. You mentioned the teacher’s strike, so what’s happening is that the Teacher’s Union is striking and they’re demanding more pay, obviously, the problem is that they want more pay in return for nothing, they don’t even want to be tested for competency, so basically, the teacher’s union wants increased pay but they’re against being examined by the state, getting tested in terms of abilities, so I mean, any way you look at it it’s completely absurd what they’re asking for, on the other hand, you do have a system in Bogotá that has worked for 15 years, it’s now in its 16^th year, of 21 charter schools: public schools run by private organizations and universities and they have done very well, much better, in standardized test results like ICFES, than public schools run by the government.

Finance Colombia: Explain what ICFES is.

Daniel Raisbeck: ICFES is basically that, an equivalent of the SATs (college entrance exams), I would put it that way.

Finance Colombia: OK, like a standardized test.

Daniel Raisbeck: A standardized test you take, I think, a few times, but the big one is called Saber Once and it’s—11^th grade is the last grade in Colombia, we don’t have 12^th grade in most schools, in the public sector definitely not, so if you look at those standardized tests, the results of these 21 chartered schools are outstanding, especially compared with government run schools in the same district, in the same neighborhoods, the parents are completely thrilled and they’re happy with the schools, they want the schools to go on, the price in these schools is also lower, considerably less, around 1.5 million pesos less than in the government run schools

Finance Colombia: That’s about 600-700 dollars.

Daniel Raisbeck: Yeah, per year.

Finance Colombia: Wow.

Daniel Raisbeck: And if you take it to around 40,000 students it’s quite a bit of money and the problem is that the Union is against these schools because it represents competition

Finance Colombia: The same as in the States.

Daniel Raisbeck: The same as in the States, the same as in England, the same as in everywhere, the same argument, they say that it’s a privatization of public education which is completely false, they simply don’t like it for ideological reasons and because they don’t want to be compared to others, because if these charter schools didn’t exist then they  could blame it all on low pay, but since they have this reference then it’s very difficult for them to make that argument, so they want to sabotage these schools, they don’t want their contracts to be extended, etc., so that’s a big political issue, right now. In the last year, that’s one example of how the mayor of Bogotá has the power to implement free market or libertarian ideas, of course, as you know, school vouchers or charter schools are not 100% free market but it does mean subsidizing the consumer instead of subsidizing the producer without asking anything in return which is what traditional government education, state run education, is. And you also mentioned the metro, the subway, that’s going to be built, you also have a very free market solution to that: because most metro systems, subway systems, in the world, 99% are subsidized, New York City’s is heavily subsidized by city taxes, by city debt and Berlin, for instance, where I lived, heavily subsidized, and they’re good public systems but it means that they cost a lot and people have to pay out of their pockets to have these systems run efficiently, whereas we have the so called value capture system, that is invented and perfected in Hong Kong.

The government in Colombia, the state is present, and It’s present in an excessive fashion where it shouldn’t be like, for instance, taxes and red tape and bureaucracy, and it’s not present where it should which is, for instance, protecting people, people’s physical safety and their private property, so, in the first place, that’s a failure of government.

It’s not being applied elsewhere, where you use the real estate value of each station, which is usually in a strategic place and you build a shopping mall or you build a skyscraper. And then the company, whether it is government run or mixed or it’s in the stock market, receives utility from these stores, or apartments, or offices, and, if you have a lot of them, like the metro in Hong Kong, it produces surpluses. It had a $2 billion surplus in 2012 and that can pay for the entire metro system, it can pay for renovations, it pays to expand the line to go to places where it originally didn’t go so, I mean, that’s the solution that we’re proposing for Bogotá, whereas the discussion right now, I was at a debate today with another candidate, has been about how much it’s going to cost to build the first line, they’re talking about 15 billion to 20 billion pesos, you’ll have to convert that into dollars! But what they’re not talking about—you can find the 15 billion pesos, you can find the 20 billion pesos too, but that’s not the problem, the problem is how much it’s going to cost to run it once it’s built.

Finance Colombia: The long run, that’s the real cost.

Daniel Raisbeck: Yeah, exactly, and if it’s going to be subsidized, how is it going to be subsidized? And if we’re going to have—if the middle class in Bogotá is going to have to pay even more taxes it is going to be a problem, because the middle class in Bogotá has reached its limit with property tax and…

Finance Colombia: I’ve seen protests, you don’t want to see middle class protests, I’ve heard news that they’re complaining of the predio.

Daniel Raisbeck: Yeah, el impuesto predial, property taxes.

Finance Colombia: Well,  let me ask you this, because coming to this meeting with you, even the taxi driver asked me, he said “you know, why not have a private firm, even from abroad, if necessary, come in and build the subway? Give them the concession, let them operate the subway, let them charge whatever they charge for. Why do we need to pay for it with our tax money?” Now, I can see a lot of arguments, even free market problems with doing that but, I’m not running for mayor, you answer that, why do it that way—Is that one option? Or why not?

Daniel Raisbeck: Yeah, I propose, (something like) Mass Transit Railways, which is the Hong Kong Company, it’s in the stock market but the government, Hong Kong, owns about 80% of the shares.

Finance Colombia: So it’s like ETB (Bogotá’s telephone company that trades publicly but the city owns a controlling interest) here, where it’s partly government owned and partly private.

Daniel Raisbeck: But, I mean, they’re operating subway lines, metro lines, in Stockholm, in London, in Melbourne, I think they should come here, because, they’re one of the best in the world, but if it’s not them it can be someone else, it doesn’t matter who it is as long as they have this model of a metro system that produces surpluses, that is financially sustainable and doesn’t have to be subsidized with taxpayer money or with government debt, what you mentioned, I think it’s fascinating that the taxi driver made that suggestion because, as I said, I think that there are many people in Colombia and in Bogotá that are libertarians and without realizing it.

Finance Colombia: I think that’s interesting, but now we mentioned that Bogotá, from knowing a little bit about Colombia, it’s fascinating because Bogotá—Colombia is not a leftist country, however, Bogotá has seems to be bastion of the left. You look at the universities here, they seems to be bastions of not just the left, but the extreme left.

Not that everybody who graduates from there are, but obviously there is an influence. What’s the historical context? How has that come to be? And how does that fit in the context of what you are doing, because, it probably would be easier for you in a lot of other places, but you’re here in Bogotá.

Daniel Raisbeck: Well, I think you would have to take it into perspective, the comparison would not necessarily be with Medellín, I think, because they have very special circumstances, but I’d compare it to the region, if you go to a department nearby, a department is a state in Colombia, like Tolima for instance, if you go to Tolima you’ll find that the state practically runs the economy and that in Tolima getting a job usually means working for the state.

Finance Colombia: For the government.

Daniel Raisbeck: So when there’s an election in Tolima it’s about who can control the cake and dole out the pieces, so—whereas in Bogotá, Bogotá has such a dynamic economy of almost 25% of the nation’s GDP, and most people don’t work for the government so Bogotá has been traditionally an independent city, and you have that, for instance, when Mockus won here over a decade ago, he came out of nowhere, defeated the political parties, you have the Mockus-Peñalosa phenomenon which was completely independent, you have in Bogotá what in Colombia is called voto de opinión, opinion votes which just means votes that aren’t political machinery or votes that are paid for, so on the one hand you have this scenario, on the other hand I think the big political waves of the past 12 years or so, or 13 years, the big rainmaker is Alvaro Uribe without a doubt, if you look at the approval ratings, he really splits Colombian political history in two, at least the political history of the last 30 years, so you that when Uribe came to power his approval ratings were just phenomenal, especially for Colombian politics because usually you’d have, if a president left office with 35% approval rating he did well.

Daniel Raisbeck: And suddenly you had Uribe with 60+ percent

Finance Colombia: Look at elections before Santos, I remember being here in Colombia and basically people’s campaign platform was “vote for me because I’m with Uribe,” and that was their campaign platform.

Daniel Raisbeck: Exactly. That’s how Santos won, which is a different conversation, but then you had Uribe with about 67% , after Operación Jaque, you know the—after the army rescue of Ingrid Betancourt, that had 75% of Colombians thinking that the country was headed in the right direction, today it’s down to below 30% or something.

 I do think you should have some basic safety net for the poorest and most vulnerable in society, absolutely. I think at least, the problem is when that safety net becomes a form of dependency and you motivate people to not to go to work and to live off subsidies and to live off handouts, SISBEN, which is the Colombian welfare system, I think that’s a problem and it’s becoming a problem the left has exploited.

 So you have that phenomenon, but at the same time you have an extreme reaction against Uribe which wasn’t huge, but it did reach the portion of 20%-22%, and If you look at Carlos Gaviria who was the candidate of Polo Democrático which is the party that formed on the left as a result of Uribe.

Finance Colombia: The anti-Uribistas, basically.

Daniel Raisbeck: Right, and it was a coalition of the leftists, leftist politicians that really didn’t have that much in common but came together just to oppose Uribe, and they got 22% in that election in 2002 which is the best presidential result of the left and then what happened was that the left was able to capitalize on that anti-Uribe, independent, basically anti-establishment feeling of Bogotá in the last 3 elections for mayor, so that’s why you’ve had 3 administrations of the left, of the more extreme left, not the violent left, but the more extreme left, I would say that the liberal democrats, the social democrats

Finance Colombia: The democratic social, European style socialists.

Daniel Raisbeck:   Right, exactly, but then on the other hand you also had the huge mistake 4 years ago, where you had several center right candidates that between them won the overwhelming majority of the vote but they didn’t unite so they split the vote and they allowed Petro, the current mayor, to come in with 30% of the vote or less I think maybe 27% or something like that, so you have to take that into account, you also have to take into account that, well, something that’s quite worrying is that the last 3 leftist governments have built a client-state in Colombia, there was an article in La Silla Vacía, in the internet portal where you hake 4 million subsidized people in Bogotá, directly subsidized in some way by the city government, so that’s worrisome, but at the same time there’s a big disappointment with the last 3 governments, I mean they haven’t done—they haven’t finished—between 2000 and 2006 we had 2 phases of Transmilenio completed, each one was over 40 Kilometers, whereas from 2006 to 2015 we have barely had 1 completed and it’s less than 40—it’s 36 Kilometers, so, I mean, the inefficiency is just outstanding.

Finance Colombia: I still haven’t figured out theSiTP (Bogotá’s feeder transit system)!

Daniel Raisbeck: No, it’s just bad administration and I think that in general people are after practical solutions and a lot of people don’t want to vote for the left, they don’t want to vote for the right, but they don’t want to vote for someone just to vote against another person, so we see a very big opportunity for an independent candidate.

Finance Colombia: Ok, what I want to ask is: if this city, in Bogotá, has already had some administrations that say “this is what we’re giving you” to people, how do we say—when, look, Bogotá is an interesting city, it’s a city that has a lot of good things, a lot of nice things, but also, for very complex reasons because of moving and things like that, we have that more than half of the city is short on resources and residents are waiting to see who is going to give them something, or who is going to offer them something, and a lot of the times it’s not their own fault, it’s not that they’re lazy, but my question is, how can you apply libertarian principles to people that are saying “look, it’s not that I’m lazy but the government brought me all this stuff” or something like that, how can you tell those people—or how can you tell those people “this is society, you shouldn’t wait for us to give you something,” but what answer do you have for people in those cases?

So what do you do in a city where people who have been displaced, have come from places where they were happy, where they were self-sufficient, but now they find themselves, with through no fault of their own, depending upon the government, and now they’ve had a couple of, you know, several different administrations who were saying “vote for me because of everything I’m going to give you,” how do you apply free market solutions to somebody in that situation?” and say “look, I’m not going to promise that I’m just going to give you a bunch of handouts, but I’m going to make it better for you,” what do you say to somebody who says “look, I came here in the last government because they’re giving me this stuff,” like you said, I think 40% or more are depending upon government handouts, how do you say to somebody “that’s not the answer,” when that’s what they’re getting today?

Daniel Raisbeck: Right, well, first of all, you mentioned the displaced people problem, displaced population and I would say that in the first place you have to recognize that the problem of displacement in Colombia is a failure of government, a failure of government to fulfill its role to protect people’s lives and property. So it’s an absolute failure of government, like I said, the government in Colombia, the state is present, and It’s present in an excessive fashion where it shouldn’t be like, for instance, taxes and red tape and bureaucracy, and it’s not present where it should which is, for instance, protecting people, people’s physical safety and their private property, so, in the first place, that’s a failure of government.

It’s a failure of the state, so when you have the displaced people coming to Bogotá, and you have the state saying “well, we’re going to solve your problem,” and they’re skeptical because, I mean, if the state wasn’t able to protect them in the first place, why are they going to make the situation better afterwards, so, first of all I think you should make that clear, on the other hand, I do think you should have some basic safety net for the poorest and most vulnerable in society, absolutely. I think at least, the problem is when that safety net becomes a form of dependency and you motivate people to not to go to work and to live off subsidies and to live off handouts, SISBEN, which is the Colombian welfare system, I think that’s a problem and it’s becoming a problem the left has exploited, but I think that Bogotá is a place where you can address these issues because Bogotá is overwhelmingly a middle class city, so according—if you look at official figures from the Bogotá chamber of commerce, poverty in absolute terms in Bogotá, or the poor population, is around 10% and people in absolute or extreme poverty is less than 1 or 2% so we are talking about a minority, and you do have to address those problems but overwhelmingly you’re talking about a middle class city, and the middle class is growing more each year, so I think the libertarian message will be very appealing for that emerging middle class, the Colombian middle class, what it means to them is just being able to go to—people who come from somewhere, maybe they were also displaced but they were able to get a job, they were able to get ahead in a city like Bogotá and they’re able to take their children on a Saturday afternoon to a shopping mall and eat an ice cream.

The government and the state in Bogotá, and in Colombia, is perpetuating inequality with its bad education policies, it’s proven that the state in the majority of cases can’t run good, decent schools, so I think the government should really get out of the way. That doesn’t mean that there shouldn’t be public education, but I think parents in these schools and these neighborhoods should be given the choice of what kind of school they want or maybe they should even be given the vouchers, to say, if it costs 4 million pesos a year to educate a child then look, give them the 4 million pesos and they can choose their own private school, and they—I think they can make a better choice than the government, than the state.

And that is already something that they didn’t have before and it’s already part of beginning to belong to a middle class, so our policies are designed to help that emergent middle class and to enlarge that, enlarge that emerging middle class, and I think that the message is appealing, and especially, as I said, because the conditions in Bogotá are accepting for that kind of message.

Finance Colombia: The government has programs right now, I mean, there’s a national program, Ser Pilo Paga, you know, which is part of a scholarship program.

 One of the things that I’ve seen, you know, again talking as an outsider, I’ve met many people who are the first generation in their family to go to a university, or to graduate. In libertarianism, just like in any other political movement there are levels, there are those who would say that the government has no role, there are also those who say that the government has a limited role and so on, the people that have been able to graduate or to attend university as the first in their families were not able to do so because of any kind of family resources. How does that fit into a context? Is that a legitimate use of government? Is there an alternative? Is that good? Is that bad? In your opinion, not necessarily that program in specific, but let’s talk about the theme of social inclusion.

You know if we look at Medellín, they’ve done things like they’ve put public works up into their neighborhoods that are at the very low social strata and they’ve done things to try to encourage those people to feel a sense of civil participation, is that a legitimate role for a municipal government? Or where are those limits defined in your opinion?

Daniel Raisbeck: Well, I’ll talk about the education part first. I think that particular government program, I’m not a great fan of the Santos government but I think that particular scholarship program of 10.000 scholarships for needy families to go to universities is a wonderful program, again, it’s a—if it’s not purely libertarian it is a free market idea in the sense that you’re subsidizing the consumer, you’re giving the money to the student and the student can choose the university that he likes, which I think is a much more efficient way of having accessible public education than having the government itself run the national university. So you’re empowering people and I definitely think, I do believe in public education, I went to a public university in Germany, and I was a product of a public university system, I do think that—even Margaret Thatcher was—I mean, she went to Oxford, which is also a public university, so I do believe in public education, the question is how do we run a public education system?

And one of the alternatives, an alternative that I find very appealing is precisely that, subsidizing the consumer, empowering people, especially people from lower income families, and it’s fantastic that these people can go to a university, that they can be the first generation, or the first generation in their family, to go to a university, and even my mother is the first generation woman in her family to go to a university, because then it was more traditional for just the man to go. My grandmother I think would have been a fantastic professor or fantastic student but she didn’t go to a university because she was a woman, so we do have this social progress in Colombia, maybe not as fast as some would like but we do see it, so I think that’s a good policy.

Of course there are alternatives, we have, for instance, the university where I work, El Rosario—or Los Andes, they have scholarships programs or credit programs, which are also options, I don’t think public education should be the only option, like the left claims that should be done in Colombia, but in terms of education I think that that is one way of achieving social inclusion.

Finance Colombia: You know, in Colombia, for all of its progress, Colombia has a little bit of infamy for being, even though it’s a very—much an advancing country , Colombia does have very vast and very obvious areas of inequality, and while a socialist would want to have redistribution as solution, what do you say to somebody who is at that, you know, in Colombia has the stratus system, what do you say to somebody of estrato 1 or estrato 2, in Bosa or Usme, or Kennedy or Soacha?

Daniel Raisbeck: Well, I would say, the real inequality that matters in Colombia, I’m not worried about material inequality. I’m worried about inequality of opportunity, so it’s not fair that someone born here, in Rosario, or Chicó can go to a good school, because it’s—a private school, because state schools don’t even operate in this part of the city, whereas someone born in Usme or Ciudad Bolivar is doomed because the state school they’re assigned to is terrible, the teachers are on strike half of the time, like they are today, and they have absolutely no ability to compete to go to a university or in the job market, because their school is so terrible.

The government and the state in Bogotá, and in Colombia, is perpetuating inequality with its bad education policies, it’s proven that the state in the majority of cases can’t run good, decent schools, so I think the government should really get out of the way. That doesn’t mean that there shouldn’t be public education, but I think parents in these schools and these neighborhoods should be given the choice of what kind of school they want or maybe they should even be given the vouchers, to say, if it costs 4 million pesos a year to educate a child then look, give them the 4 million pesos and they can choose their own private school, and they—I think they can make a better choice than the government, than the state. These 25 charter schools, colegios en concesión that I mentioned, are precisely located in these neighborhoods like Usme, Ciudad Bolivar, Kennedy, etc., and that’s why they’re making an impact, but parents, like I said, they really are enthusiastic about these schools, they want to keep the schools, and it’s not only the parents of children who are enrolled in these schools, but it’s parents of children in nearby public schools that would like to have a similar school, or would like to transfer their child to that school. So I think that the first step to creating a real equality of opportunity to the greatest extent possible, is by reforming the education system, and what we have in Bogotá, and in Colombia, is an archaic education system, where it’s top-down: the mayor chooses a Secretary of Education and the Secretary of Education chooses the education model for all 400 state schools in Bogotá, whether the parents like it or not,

The government is acting as an obstacle to an equality of opportunity and to social mobility, especially in the poorer parts of Bogotá, neighborhoods that really need these opportunities.

And so, one thing, a very good thing, that these charter schools have done is that they have introduced an element of technical education for their students, so their students can choose whether or not they want to have—they can graduate with the bachillerato:the regular high school degree, but they can also graduate with a technical degree or with 2 technical degrees, in mechanics or something else. And they can get a job immediately, or they can even open their own business, or they can go into university with several semesters already advanced, so this is a fantastic system, it works, it’s proven that it works, and I think we should expand it, but the left and the current government are opposed. They’re opposed, for ideological reasons, and I think that’s a scandal, because the government is acting as an obstacle to an equality of opportunity and to social mobility, especially in the poorer parts of Bogotá, neighborhoods that really need these opportunities.

Finance Colombia: We’ve talked about the people at the bottom, estrato 1, let’s talk about people of estrato 5, or estrato 6, for example, the gremios in Colombia—there’s no real direct translation of the gremio in English, but it’s like a trade—

Daniel Raisbeck: It’s like a guild,

Finance Colombia: It’s like a—yeah, it’s like an industry group. Yeah, but let’s look at that, because what happens is that we see policies, and it’s interesting because we see how they try to manipulate things, like they’ll say “Well, let’s make a law that no trucks can be on the road that are more than 7 years old,” well obviously the truck dealer’s gremio wants to sell new trucks to everybody, on the other hand, that would devastate a lot of people who can’t afford a new truck.

Daniel Raisbeck: Exactly, you expel them from the market.

Finance Colombia: Yeah, and it’s like “How do people come up with ideas like this?” and now—and they’ll say something like  “Well, we care about the environment!”

Daniel Raisbeck: [laughs]

Finance Colombia: Well, no, bullshit! You want to sell the trucks, you know, but they’re very powerful in Colombia, and it’s interesting because on one hand they serve to balance against the unions, on the other hand, they are no more for a free market than the unions are because they’re saying “let’s do market distortion, let’s say you have to do B, you have to do C,” how do you balance them? Because there are pressure groups that are very powerful in Colombia that want to promote their interests on the backs of everyone else, you know, and generally it’s the left that says “well, we want to protect you against these big interests but they are really protecting some other entrenched interests,and you have this tug-o-war between left and right but neither one of them are really for a free market or a free choice, it’s really just rent seeking—who your ally is, you know.

Daniel Raisbeck: Yeah, and that’s a great question because in Colombia academics have written about this, for instance, James Robinson from Harvard, the Colombian economic system tends to create, and historically has tended to create monopolies. And these are monopolies, or oligopolies, that are extremely powerful and extremely powerful economically—because they’re protected by the government, by excessive regulation or, for instance, obstacles to trade, to foreign trade, so this is just a feature of Colombian politics, but what is very clear is that it is not a matter of left and right because, maybe you would think, at least that’s some mythology that the left protects the workers and the right is more free market and therefore they protect the rich guys,

Finance Colombia: The marketing and spin-doctoring of it all.

Daniel Raisbeck: Right, whereas in truth, you have very curious alliances, for instance, the pueblo democrático, which is very much to the left and opposed to free trade, and you have one of their main figures which is Jorge Enrique Rebolledo, and up to 3 years ago, he was openly allied with Alvaro Uribe, who is associated with a more right wing in Colombia, opposed to the free trade agreements that Uribe signed.

And you also have them allied, for instance, in the struggle against the free trade agreement with South Korea, and it turns out that one of Rebolledo’s and the Pueblo’s main allies is the local auto manufacturing lobby, so these people are supposed to protect the workers but they’re they’re really protecting, big local industrial interests, and this is the way the Colombian economy functions. So in Bogotá we have a very good example, and you mentioned the  mobility problems, how difficult it is to get around in Bogotá,and then you had one solution, or a partial solution, which is the arrival of Uber, the American firm. In Bogotá, Uber has had a one of the most exponential growth rates, one of the largest growth rates for them in the world, because the transportation system is so bad that many people just began to use Uber, even though credit cards are not as widespread or widely used in Colombia as in the States, or in other countries.

One of the interesting things about being a libertarian in Colombia, is that you’re constantly attacked by the left and they call you a Neoliberal and say that you want to privatize education, public education, that you want to sell whole state assets and that you’re basically the devil, but, on the other hand, you’re also attacked by these gremios, because you are also a threat to them, because competition is beneficial for the consumer because the consumer can choose in terms of prices  in terms of service, etc., But that’s not what these gremios want, they want  to capture the market by force and force people to buy…

And then what happened? You had the yellow taxi lobby, which is politically very strong, and they put heavy pressure on the Santos government, Santos promised the taxi lobby or the taxi drivers two weeks before reelection that he was going to put Uber out of the market and then Uber is technically illegal, at this moment, but it’s still operating. So the government really, with this position, wants to keep the taxi votes, which are either hundreds of thousands of votes, especially in an election year, like 2015, but at the same time they know that if they really go after Uber, they’re going to have an uproar from the consumers—

Finance Colombia: But the taxis here are infamous, especially in Bogotá, for throwing people out or robbing people and—

Daniel Raisbeck: Right, the infamous millionaire´s ride!

Finance Colombia: Yeah, El Paseo Millonario, you know, it’s funny because, if I am in Zona T I won’t catch a taxi, I walk and I go to the eleventh and I walk down eleventh for a while.

Daniel Raisbeck: Yeah, because that’s the place where you get caught in a moment! I know so many people that have been victims of the Paseo Millonario. I think 2 years ago we had the case of a DEA agent who was killed in a taxi, and that’s the reason why people like Uber, because you know who your taxi is, you know that it’s safe, because they have a screening process,

Finance Colombia: No cash.

Daniel Raisbeck: No cash, you can pay with your credit card, so—

Finance Colombia: Like AirBnB.

Daniel Raisbeck: Exactly, the same with Air BnB, but going back to the question, this is a good example of how a gremio, in this case the taxi lobby, tries to use its political influence: they don’t try to improve their service in order to compete and get more customers, their modus operandi, their way of operating is to get the government, the state, their allies in the state, to basically forbid the competition. That’s the way that traditionally the Colombian economy has worked. Fortunately today, for instance, I think it would be very difficult, even technologically, for the government to forbid Uber, to get them out of the market, so with the rapid rise of mobile applications, digital applications, it’s going to be ever more difficult for these gremios to maintain their hold on power. But that’s a very big difficulty and one of the interesting things about being a libertarian in Colombia, is that you’re constantly attacked by the left and they call you a Neoliberal and say that you want to privatize education, public education, that you want to sell whole state assets and that you’re basically the devil, but, on the other hand, you’re also attacked by these gremios, because you are also a threat to them, because competition is beneficial for the consumer because the consumer can choose in terms of prices  in terms of service, etc., But that’s not what these gremios want, they want  to capture the market by force and force people to buy, I mean, even beer, we’re drinking Club Colombia, well, Bavaria controls—I don’t know that the percentage is now—but a few  years ago it was 96% of the beer market, and then you saw the arrival of Peroni, an itallian beer, and I thought “Oh, interesting, Peroni,” and I looked at the back and I saw “Imported by Bavaria,”—

Finance Colombia: [laughs]

Daniel Raisbeck: So you have, basically in every major sector of the economy, you have these big groups and that’s the reason, and that’s what Robinson says: Colombia is a big market but it’s not a huge market, 40 million people, 50 million people, but you have 3 of the richest people in the world because Ardila Lülle in sodas, Sarmiento in financial services and Santo Domingo in beer. It was the creation of monopolies a few decades back, and the Colombian market is sufficiently big, whereby, if one person controls the entire market they can become one of the 100 richest people—

Finance Colombia: So it’s not—so even though it’s a free market compared to its neighbors, it’s not a free market because just—it’s a private market but not necessarily a free market, because we’re operating like the United States operated in 1910, where you have a more mercantilist than a capitalist system. People confuse mercantilism with capitalism, you know, and you see when they’re denouncing capitalism, they’re really denouncing mercantilism.

Daniel Raisbeck: Exactly. And we’re arguing in the libertarian movement is that what really benefits the consumer is a real free market where, fine, you can have Bavaria, they can have the same products but let people have a choice, like you have a choice of Peruvian beer or Mexican beer, of American beer, of German beer, and have a, basically, free trade, no import tariffs or quotas, or any of these ridiculous things, you don’t even need a free trade agreement, you can say—what Hong Kong did was you say, basically anyone can come here and trade.

Finance Colombia: The freest economy in the world.

Daniel Raisbeck: Exactly, and you can see Hong Kong was just about as poor as Colombia was in the 1950s and now there’s a huge difference and these are the types of policies that we’re promoting because we think that economic policies should be geared towards the consumer. It should be the consumer who’s benefitted, the consumer who can choose, based on the price, based on the quality, based on whatever he wants, and he shouldn’t have these special interest groups enriching themselves by being the only product available to consumers.

Finance Colombia: What do you tell people in Bogotá, that will say “look, the Tapahueco (a device that the current mayor purchased from Great Britain to fill potholes but has not lived up to its hype, and been mired in a malfeasance scandal) has not come to my neighborhood, I don’t care about a Tapahueco, I just want these damn holes filled?” You know, I stay up here above the Circunvalar,and if you take Calle 53, you try to go north, or you try to go up the hill and you fall into the holes!

Daniel Raisbeck: Right.

Finance Colombia: You know, I feel bad because I’m sometime in a taxi and the taxi driver is—doesn’t know the neighborhood and he doesn’t know there is going to be a big hole and boom, it’s like ¡se rompió el eje! (you broke an axle!)

Daniel Raisbeck: [laughs] yeah.

Finance Colombia: Ok, so mayors are not usually a very ideological position like congress, or even a president can be, but people who want their garbage taken out, the people that want their water, the people who want to be safe when they walk down the street, the people who want to be able to ride the Transmilenio, whether it’s a good idea or not that we have a Transmilenio, it’s there.

Daniel Raisbeck: Right.

Finance Colombia: What the people want—they don’t want to have holes in their neighborhood, you know, the people who want to deal with the insecurity so they don’t get robbed, what message do you have for them? This is not ideological, like what you’re running for as mayor is an administrative position. What do you have to say for them?

Daniel Raisbeck: Well, first of all, I would say “you’re absolutely right, it’s not about ideology, when—if you are mayor,” but, again, I do think that libertarian ideas, free market ideas, can bring solutions to these problems which you mention, and I’ll just mention, I’m not saying that this is necessarily going to be our policy, but, you know, I’ve read in the States, if I’m not mistaken, a neighboring state to Ohio, Kentucky, so what they did was that they allowed, I think it was KFC or something, if KFC gets rid of the pothole they have the ability to, or they have right to advertise over the previously existing pothole.

 So we get Exito or whoever, you know—

Finance Colombia: Este hueco fue patrocinado por Exito [This hole was sponsored by Éxito] [laughs]

Daniel Raisbeck: Exactly, and I mean, that’s a practical solution, you would have to examine.

Finance Colombia: Wow. Este hueco fue tapado por KFC [This hole was filled by KFC] [laughs]

Daniel Raisbeck: But whoever it is, I mean, it doesn’t matter, and on the other hand since we do believe in initiative, we do believe in a greater participation of the citizens in decision making, we believe in digital technology, we have the ability to create applications whereby the citizen can inform whoever is in charge, whether it’s the mayor or it’s someone in the administration of getting rid of that pothole, paving the street, you can do it per application and the citizen can rate the efficiency of the Secretaría de Movilidad (transportation department), or whoever, and you just create the system where you have greater ability to communicate and it’s all faster and it gets done, and it doesn’t really matter how it gets done.

Out of every ten thieves that are caught after stealing a mobile phone, nine go free after a few hours, so, I mean this is proven also from New York during the Giuliani years, if you tolerate relatively small crimes, like graffiti, like stealing cell phones, like small muggings, you would think that it’s not such a large problem, but when you tolerate that, you create a sense of insecurity and that sense of insecurity empowers criminals and really empowers the bad guys.

I mean, these are just some examples. When you talk about security, again, I do think that it’s pretty much the main responsibility of the state. I do believe that it’s the main responsibility of the state to uphold security in the neighborhoods, on the Transmilenio; like I said, I think we only have 18,000 police officers in Bogotá. We have over eight million people, that’s far too little because, internationally, what is usually said is that you need 1 police officer per 250 people and if you take into account those 18,000 they’re not all working at the same time, they’re working in shifts, so you really have around 6,000 police officers working at the same time, so that’s far too little. I do think that we need to increase the amount of police officers in the streets. Now, how are you going to finance that? You can look at reducing the bureaucracy in other parts of the city administration, so you can transfer the resources from where they’re being wasted in bureaucracy and in creating this client-patronage system to where they’re really needed, which is providing security on the streets and in the buses.

Finance Colombia: How do you fix the culture?I go to Bucaramanga and I don’t see graffiti on the walls. I go to Medellín and nobody hops on to the metro for free.

Daniel Raisbeck: Well, I think there are 2 things, first of all, there’s a phrase I like that’s—that was used a few years ago by the current mayor of London, Boris Johnson, he might be the next leader of the British Conservative Party, in London they had to criminalize crime, and I like that phrase because we had that problem in Bogotá where the theft of cellphones, for instance, of mobile phones, basically goes with impunity. Out of every ten thieves that are caught after stealing a mobile phone, nine go free after a few hours, so, I mean this is proven also from New York during the Giuliani years, if you tolerate relatively small crimes, like graffiti, like stealing cell phones, like small muggings, you would think that it’s not such a large problem, but when you tolerate that, you create a sense of insecurity and that sense of insecurity empowers criminals and really empowers the bad guys.

So what you have to do is you have to start by having a zero-tolerance policy towards all kinds of crime, whether it’s graffiti on private or public property, or whether it’s stealing a cellphone, or whether It’s going into Transmilenio without paying your fare. When  Giuliani started catching people with undercover policemen, policemen dressed as civilians, in the new metro system, they found out that the people who were going in without paying the fare were usually the same people with criminal records and it’s a relatively easy problem to deal with if you have the political will to deal with it.

Finance Colombia: But you know what? If I may, even looking at it from a libertarian standpoint, as you see in the United States, we have a problem with that going too far, we have a problem right now in the United States where people without probable cause are being harassed and the police are overstepping all kinds of 4^th Amendment boundaries—

Daniel Raisbeck: Right, no, no, no. I talked about the big mistake here that was to militarize the police in Bogotá, I’m not talking about militarizing the police, I’m not talking about searching people, I’m completely against what happened to you a few weeks again when you were just randomly stopped in Bogotá, I was randomly stopped in my car, also a few weeks ago, absolutely absurd.

Finance Colombia: But here that’s legal. There is no 4^th Amendment (to the United States Constitution)

Daniel Raisbeck: Yeah, it is.

The challenge for the libertarians in Colombia, or for groups like Students for Liberty, which is a group that’s growing across the world, Europe also, the US also, is to take these arguments from the strictly think-tank academic level where only very few people are going to be able to understand it, and really evangelize and become a citizens movement or a mass movement if need be, and I use the word evangelize on purpose, because if you look even at the rise of the conservative movement in the United States they really did use these evangelists techniques.

Finance Colombia: But at least it’s legal here, I mean, I’m not defending it but I’m saying, at least—in the States, as you know, they do it anyway and it’s even illegal.

Daniel Raisbeck: Yeah, ok, great, we agree but I’m not talking about going too far, I’m not talking about random searches on the streets, I’m talking about criminalizing crime, I’m talking about going after the people who really did it, and it’s evident that they did it, and I will admit that a big part of the problem which a mayor can’t control is the justice system, because if the justice system is broken, if the justice system is corrupt and if the police do their job and they take the people, the criminals down to the station and then nothing happens to them—

Finance Colombia: You’re right.

Daniel Raisbeck: Well, it goes beyond the mayor, it goes beyond the police, you also have to tackle corruption within the police, and it’s very common in Bogotá, when you get stopped for, for instance, pico y placa, when you drive when you’re not supposed to, given the limits and people usually get out, or many times get out, of the fine by paying—by bribing the police officer, that’s commonly known, we have to get rid of those kinds of police officers because it’s all a matter of rule of law, and that brings me to the second point which is what you mentioned about the culture in Bogotá: If you had been here under Mockus, 10 or 15 years ago, you would have found a different kind of city, where people did respect norms and people did stop where they were supposed to, in their cars, because Mockus called it Cultura Ciudadana and he made an effort for the city and the authorities to educate people, even paying mimes to be on the street—

Finance Colombia: I heard about that, he’s famous for those tactics.

Daniel Raisbeck: Publicly shaming people if they would stand on the white lines, for instance, on the street, I think that’s a good idea that should be reenacted, but I think in the end Cultura Ciudadana, if you would translate it into English, the real sense is rule of law.

Finance Colombia: How big is the Libertarian movement in Colombia?

Daniel Raisbeck: It’s very small, I wouldn’t exaggerate, as I said, the libertarian movement is growing in Colombia and in Latin America as a whole, I think this is also a result of very left wing populous governments like Hugo Chavez, like Correa in Ecuador or Evo Morales in Bolivia, you really have students, especially young people who realize that these populist policies aren’t working, they’re making their countries poor. They’re taking away opportunities for people and they’re looking for an alternative, and that’s when these free market ideas that are based on very solid academic work by lots of scholars during many generations, that’s when they really can start gaining adepts. The challenge for the libertarians in Colombia, or for groups like Students for Liberty, which is a group that’s growing across the world, Europe also, the US also, is to take these arguments from the strictly think-tank academic level where only very few people are going to be able to understand it, and really evangelize and become a citizens movement or a mass movement if need be, and I use the word evangelize on purpose, because if you look even at the rise of the conservative movement in the United States they really did use these evangelists techniques.

You really have to be a big fanatic in the sense of going, getting up on a Saturday morning and knocking on people’s doors and delivering the leaflets, saying this is what we believe and you’re going to get rejected thousands of times but you’re also going to reach people, and well that’s—

Finance Colombia: And we see in Miami, the best capitalists are those people who escaped from communism and understand what it’s really like.

Daniel Raisbeck: Right. You don’t have to be a PhD economist to realize that the kind of economic policies that lead to a lack of basic goods in Venezuela and, I don’t know, like sugar and toilet paper in Venezuelan supermarkets and, well there’s probably something wrong with that. Then they start to see “well, what’s the alternative?” or “why don’t we have those problems here?” and—

Finance Colombia: The best capitalists are former, you know, people who come from Venezuela, people who come from Cuba, people—Colombians, they look at what Chavez has done to Venezuela, what the Kirchners have done in Argentina, and they look at the FARC and ELN, Sendero Luminoso, and they think: “screw that!”

Finance Colombia’s executive editor Loren Moss recently met with the vice-mayor of Medellín Felipe Hoyos, responsible for Information and Communication Technology, Economic Development, and Internationalization to learn about Mayor Anibal Gaviria’s administration’s efforts to attract investment to Colombia’s second largest city, and their work to make sure that all sectors of society benefit from that investment.

Above photo: Vice-mayor of Medellín Felipe Hoyos  (left) with Finance Colombia’s executive editor Loren Moss

Finance Colombia:  Medellín is already famous for having transformed itself. A couple of decades ago it was infamous as the most dangerous city on earth. Now, the UN just held a global convention here and Medellin has been cited as the most innovative city in the world. How has the city been able to turn itself around in less than two decades?

Felipe Hoyos:  The fundamental principle of the current municipal administration, the fundamental values are the preservation of life and equality in its growth. Because those two things have been the biggest problems in our country: a huge inequality among our population—a concentration of wealth in very few hands; and then a large segment of the population that lacks resources. In our history we had really serious violence problems. For some years now the mayor has been working with those principles in mind: we have to develop a city that protects life, and which grows with equality for all.

In our area, related to economic development, there are three fronts: economic growth per se: everything that produces economic growth and that at the same time generates quality employment, and there are several themes: one of them would be strengthening the business sector, one of our main focuses has been, “how do we strengthen businesses, especially small business?” which is a giant base of job creation in the city, especially when we find that big corporations in Colombia are actually not hiring more people, on the contrary, they are becoming more efficient, achieving more sales with less people.

The United Nations held its World Urban Forum in Medellin from April 5-11, 2014 bringing together world municipal leaders to learn best practices and study Medellin’s success and innovation.

So job generation is greatest in the small businesses sector, and that’s why Medellín has a very powerful strategy of supporting small businesses, and formalization of those same businesses. Because another difficulty I have found is that, many of those small businessmen are informal and that is very delicate because being informal means that they are under the radar, pay no taxes, and do not pay the salaries they should. That is not sustainable in the long run. So we have a program of strengthening and formalization in the small business sector.

And the third variable of economic development is education, developing human talent for the labor market. We are not satisfied with just educating lawyers, engineers, doctors and pilots, we want to educate or population for what is really required; to close the gap between supply and demand. Because, even if someone has a degree, that doesn’t mean that’s what society needs—we will need more technicians and technologists. So the third variable for economic growth is pertinent education for labor, and that’s where the city has many programs, many of them dispensed by the three municipal universities.

Medellin, in contrast with the rest of the country, is the owner of three universities with 38,000 students. Normally, municipalities are the owners of primary schools and high schools but not universities. We have something like 450 primary schools or high schools, but three additional universities—and a large number of kindergartens. To summarize, Medellín has 380,000 high school students, and 38,000 university students, in technology careers. That is education relevant to the labor market. And that is part of the first block of economic development.

The second block is internationalization. Let’s say it’s a triangle with three points: economic development, internationalization and innovation. In internationalization there are several strategies but they are basically focused on two fronts: the promotion of the city to the world, to attract tourists, for events mostly: conventions, seminars, which attract corporate tourism. Medellín is aware that it’s not a vacation destination: there is no sea, no beaches, no high mountains with ski resorts or that type of thing, but there is a strength in corporate tourism, so there we see a strategy in internationalization, promoting the city for corporate tourism, and promoting the city to capture international investment.

There are two institutions taking care of that role: The agency responsible for attracting international investment is the Agencia de Cooperación e Inversión (ACI), and the agency for promoting tourism is the Medellín Convention and Visitors Bureau. Each one works independently but focused and with well-defined goals. They are backed by the great convention center and event operator that we have here, which also belongs to the municipality, called Plaza Mayor. So those three agencies are in charge of internationalization of the city. Not only looking for tourists to come and spend in Medellín, in hotels, restaurants, commerce, transport, or investors who build companies to generate quality labor, but to change the image of the city in the world.

Let’s say the image was once a very bad one, because [years ago] we had nightmarish violence, but we still have problems with our global image because Medellín still carries those stigmas related to violence, drug-dealing, so this strategy of marketing and city promotion is also to change that old image, to improve tourism, so that investors come and see that we have ideal conditions to invest. It’s a complex challenge, because the ideal conditions Medellín has are not enough, you need human talent, to have local and national government help the investor, you need stable regulation and legislation over the long term, you need improvement in taxation, the labor market, and so on; rules to protect the investment of the investor, to protect foreign investment, and stability in the rules of the game over time.

Medellín has found innovation to be a third quality. In Medellín, in general, the population has been quite entrepreneurial, quite creative, and it is through innovation that social and economic transformations occur. So in innovation promotion: we have a complete strategy, with a set budget, to support innovation in government entities, to promote innovation in private companies, and in the general population, through a culture of innovation: training of children at school, science contests, research groups, support, one-to-one projects with universities and private companies, innovation platforms so that investors meet with entrepreneurs and innovators, so that they find ways to finance their development; bringing universities and private corporations together to work on what is really required. We have big innovation events where we bring lecturers and expert innovators, world class entrepreneurs to tell us about their experiences.

In terms of innovation, we have big things are going on here, which I think are unique in Colombia. There is no municipality investing so much in innovation, there is a specific ten year plan of science, technology and innovation, with a set budget which started in 2012 and is planned out until 2021. 25 million dollars per year, to be invested exclusively on innovation, through Ruta-N, the center that coordinates innovation.

In Medellín, in general, the population has been quite entrepreneurial, quite creative, and it is through innovation that social and economic transformations occur.

That’s the platform we have for economic development, to try to generate growth with equality, and generate quality labor opportunities. Labor is seen as the biggest obstacle for security in the country: as long as there is not enough employment opportunity for everybody, it will be very difficult for low and middle class individuals to grow and to have the rest of the things they ought to have access to. So we believe one basic necessity is employment. To work on employment is fundamental for human dignity and a decent life. Unemployment rates are still high, not only in Colombia but also in Medellín, the rate is 9%. In Colombian cities it is 10%, in the countryside it is 8%, and the national average is 9%).

Finance Colombia: There are a lot of people in the countryside who say, “I have no job, I’m off to the city”. So the unemployment rate increases in the city, which has to attend to those people who arrive, they are citizens, although recent arrivals. So that puts pressure on the city.

Medellin’s Metrocable system that integrates with the city’s metro, ensures that the low income residents that live in the city’s mountanside neighborhoods have safe, inexpensive access to the city’s transportation infrastructure. This is an integral part of Medellin’s long term social inclusion strategy.

Felipe Hoyos:  And among the cities, there are some that are much more attractive than others, for a variety of reasons. Medellín is one of the most appealing, because it has universal coverage in public services. The whole city has public services, light, water, sewage, natural gas, and basic sanitation everywhere. It has a nice climate; free education for all children. And full health coverage in Colombia, practically for everybody, there are some of the best EPSs [health service provider entities] everywhere. Medellín has a good transport system.

Those five variables contribute to the arrival of more people to Medellín. Bogotá is the city that attracts the most, but Medellín is the second by far, and that puts some extra pressure on the unemployment rate. These are the reasons Medellín stands out compared to the rest of the country. The propositions not only for economic development, but also the ones related to security, education, health, recreation, infrastructure, and general development. We have seen that Medellín, in the previous years, has been growing above the national average by at least 1 percentage point. When the country grows 4%, Medellín grows 5%. In the same way it has been growing faster than the rest of the country, it has been keeping the unemployment well under the national average.

12, maybe 14 years ago, it was decided that in Medellín there would be six clusters, six segments in which it would be important to make an extra effort: Energy, Health, Construction, Textiles, Business tourism, and TICs (Information and Communications Technology). In those six clusters, it was found the in the first five, there was already a wealth of experience and a strong backing from the municipal administration. In energy for instance, historically this region has been wealthy in rivers and water, so it has had the biggest energy companies. The electric companies are headquartered in Medellín: EPM, CELSIA, ISA, ISAGEN, four of the five most important in the country. In health, we have historically had very good hospitals of the highest quality.

In construction we have seen the growth of big construction companies in Medellín. In textiles, Medellín has been historically a textile city, in spite of that sector being so badly injured during the last 25 years, due to the lack of competitiveness and excessive labor cost, and the obsolescence of machinery. But despite that, textiles are still important. And finally in the area of tourism, Medellín has started to stand out and attract big events here, not only because the municipal administration supports them, but because it we have very good facilities and a good marketing team. Finally, ICT (Information and Communications Technology), is an area where we have placed a bet, in order to diversify our economy. It’s a smaller sector still, but we have great expectations.

Finance Colombia: What programs does the city have to help those who have not traditionally had access to the higher education or the capability to participate in those high-tech or targeted growth sectors?

Felipe Hoyos:  Part of the strategy of the municipality through the three universities it has, is to create an education plan adjusted to the needs of the clusters. So there we have the Pascual Bravo, a university that has a lot to do with software development, computer programming, all that related to technology, Pascual Bravo is offering a series of programs at a very affordable price, trying to capture students interested in those vocations.

The Colegio Mayor has a lot to offer in the area of tourism. It has all the education for gastronomy, restaurant administration, hotel administration, service, bilingualism. And ITM is much bigger, all technologies focused on industry, so automotive tech, automotive mechanic, electronic engineers, and so on, it’s more about technicians and engineers but Pascual Bravo and Colegio Mayor have their specific focus, one in ICTs and the other in tourism. Obviously beyond those three universities there are many others, private ones, of very good quality. And there is a complete academic offering in health sciences, engineering, practically everything for a city of the size of Medellín and the surrounding metropolitan area, with some 3.6 million inhabitants.

Finance Colombia: So Medellin is focused on education and developing human talent in order to attract employers and investment?

Felipe Hoyos:  The topic of talent is key for any city to become an attractive destination for investment. It’s the first thing the investors ask me about: “talent, have you got it?” And in that respect, Medellín is very conscientious that it has to work hard.

EAFIT now offers 21 undergraduate degrees, 65 specializations, 33 masters’ degrees, and four doctorates, across their colleges of Administration, Engineering, Sciences, Humanities, Law, Economics, and Finance. The university, with the principal campus located in the south of Medellín, just off of the Aguacatalá metro station, also has satellite campuses in Bogotá, Pereira, Llanogrande, and an MBA-specific campus in the Central American country of Guatemala; as well as several growing international alliances.

Above rendering (courtesy Grupo Argos): the new Centro Argos Para La Innovacion being built on EAFIT’s Campus

Finance Colombia’s executive editor Loren Moss sat down with EAFIT’s rector, Dr. Juan Luis Mejia Arango, in his Medellín offices to talk about EAFIT’s past, present and future.

Finance Colombia: We could start with a bit of the history. I understand, as I have heard, EAFIT was founded by a group of businessmen here in Antioquia to improve the quality of education. How was that?

Dr. Mejia: This university is 55 years old. It was founded in 1960, in a critical moment in all of Latin America. We were entering a new development model, known as the “The Cepalino Model,” through the Economic Commission for Latin America (CEPAL); a new economic focus for Latin America. That change of paradigm can be now summarized as: industrialization towards the inside, import substitutions, production of goods and services, which generated a grand shift towards urbanization here in Medellín, which already had a strong industrial base. By the end of the 1950s, businessmen of the city realized that they had a need for qualified managers for their companies. They did a study and the directors of our companies and big industries found out that they had engineers and lawyers, but there was no real professional management corps in Colombia.

EAFIT’s Rector, Dr. Juan Luis Mejia Arango (left) explains the university’s vision to Finance Colombia’s Loren Moss

That coincided with a moment of renewed relationships between the US and Latin America. Beginning with the Eisenhower administration, but mostly since Kennedy, with his Alianza por el Progreso, one of its objectives was the transference of new technologies towards Latin America. So the three things coincided: a new economic development model, the needs of the companies, and a new vision from the US towards Latin America. The three aspects came together and these businessmen gathered around ANDI (National Association of Colombian Businesspeople) and around one othervery important body in Colombia then, called INCOLDA (Instituto Colombiano de Administración), and succeeded in obtaining from the US Government, through what was known as ‘Chapter Four’ of the Alliance, teachers from Syracuse University. And with them, they started offering in Colombia the degree in business administration.

At the beginning, our initials were EAF, for Escuela de Administración y Finanzas. Professor. Hargadon still lives, he is like the father of modern accountancy in Colombia. [editor’s note: Bernard J Hargadon Jr. literally wrote the book on Accounting for Latin America: “Contabilidad de Costos” and began teaching accounting in Medellín within three months of EAF’s establishment] So, this school was founded in 1960 around those three, let’s say, pillars.

A few years later, the industry demand was for, let’s say, not only bachelor’s level administration, but also technicians and technologists for plant operations. So a parallel institute was created, called Instituto Tecnológico, that’s where we got our initials: Escuela de Administración y Finanzas e Instituto Tecnológico, to train technicians, then basically for the textiles industry. By 1970, the directors of the university saw that it was not then ideal to have professional studies alongside technical studies, and so the Instituto Tecnológico was suppressed. The IT disappeared and the directors made a jump to transform what was then a technical school into a university. The difference between a school and a university is that the school is directed towards only one specific area of knowledge, in this case business administration. On the other hand, a university has a vocation towards universality. So here, they decided to suppress the technical institute and to replace it with a new school of engineering.

“At this moment, we have 26 US teachers at EAFIT.”

Nevertheless, in those moments, the relationships between the US and Latin America were different, the interests were different. Today we look towards Europe, mostly Germans, who, via GTZ (known as GIZ since 2011), support development of the new engineering careers inside EAFIT. And then we created the engineering, production, process, mechanical, civil, systems, geology engineering, and lately design engineering programs. And now the university has moved even more towards universality, as we have been creating other schools: sciences, humanities, law, finance and economics and the last one is arts & sciences. That is the evolution of EAFIT, under a foundational principle we still abide by: professional practice. That is: the students from our university, before receiving their diploma, should have walked through the real world, through the world of enterprise.

Finance Colombia: Not only theory?

Dr. Mejia: Exactly. So that’s why all our careers have at least one semester in which the student, before receiving his or her degree, goes through the real world, the internship. Before that was only in private companies, but also nowadays in the public sector as well. It is something very interesting, how the concepts of administration, let’s say, designed for the private company, have permeated, and made an impact in the public sector. Here in Medellín for example, the mayor is an EAFIT graduate, the manager of EPM is an EAFIT graduate, the new director of the Medellin Metro is an EAFIT graduate. So what was once thought of as primarily for the private sector, also impacts the public sector these days. And I believe right here we have one of the keys to the new vision for the transformation of this city.

Finance Colombia: Which academic relationships does EAFIT have with other universities and institutions?

Dr. Mejia: Good question, because it brings up an interesting aspect. Look, unfortunately, the agenda between the US and Colombia, during the past few decades was focused on antinarcotics, at the expense of everything else. Nowadays the administrations, theirs [the US] as well as ours, are trying to restart those links. Because of this, we have recently had more relationships with European universities, than with US ones. After that initial stage, our relationships turned towards Europe, and nowadays we are also trying to reach Asia. We do not want to settle for any one model, but to have a variety. So, where do we stand now? Some historical relationships with Europe, basically France in mechanical and civil engineering; with the Dutch in design engineering.

EAFIT’s verdant campus on Medellin’s south side.

And we are trying to open relationships with the Asia-Pacific region. In our last strategic plan, we contemplated that this university could contribute to society by bringing this city and this society closer to Asia and the Pacific, and for that matter we have created a study center for Asia and the Pacific, and to try to get this society, which has always looked towards the Atlantic, to look also towards the Pacific. Even when Antioquia’s 21^st century vision was being discussed, when we said “Pacific” it referred to the two meanings of the word, not only “peaceful”, but also towards the Pacific Ocean. So today we have important relationships with Europe, with some Asian universities, and the academic relationships between US and Colombian universities are being rebuilt.

There is still a big obstacle: the travel advisories put out by the US State Department. As long as they remain, the relationships will be timid. But in the last few years we have seen a restart in our relationships with the US universities. The reluctance for some US academics to travel here because of the travel advisories is an obstacle which is still difficult to overcome. But we believe, with a peace treaty [with the FARC], that restriction will disappear. However, some important developments exist at this time. First, the interest expressed by some universities in the US towards Colombia; Purdue University, in Indiana, to start with.

With Purdue we have a magnificent relationship. And in their strategic plan, they have as an objective to contribute to the development of Colombia. For instance, with them we have installed the most powerful supercomputer in Colombia; we call it Apollo, in honor of Neil Armstrong, who was a Purdue graduate. That supercomputer has boosted research in Colombia in an exponential way, thanks to Purdue University.

We were the first university in Colombia to be part of President Obama’s new strategy of “100,000 Strong In The Americas,” to bring students from the US into Latin America. This semester we have the first 10 students. If we could get beyond those State Department Advisories, the relationships could be even more numerous. But I’m optimistic and the relationships with the US universities will continue to grow strongly in the upcoming years. Specifically we have been strengthening relationships in Indiana with Purdue, in Massachusetts with Brandeis University—we have a joint program with them; with FIU in Florida, with Tulane in New Orleans, with Carnegie Mellon; And slowly more relationships are being established. And also to bring teachers: At this moment, we have 26 US teachers at EAFIT. Not only in languages, but in other areas as well. And we have an increasing number of students studying doctorates in other universities. Yesterday I heard that a scholar, Luz María Martínez Sierra, from our physics engineering faculty, is in Pasadena, California, with NASA, on a project to send a satellite to Europa, one of the moons of Jupiter, in search of water.

Finance Colombia: Yes, I read about it in the newspaper.

Centro Argos, under construction earlier this year.

Dr. Mejia: I believe every day the exchange increases with universities, and we have students of ours who used to look only towards Europe. Now it all belongs to history, but there was a point when I said, “Only war correspondents or DEA agents come to Medellin!” during many years. Now that has all changed, and I believe that the academic exchange continues to increase.

Finance Colombia: One good thing about how things have changed is that now we have seen a demand for news from Colombia.

Dr. Mejia: Positive news.

Finance Colombia: Not only from North America, but also from Europe and Asia. If a German or a Chinese wants to investigate or research Colombia, if they don’t speak Spanish, they will look for information in English. There is so much investment and so much businesses happening here, it is the number three economy in Latin America, and number two has 120 million inhabitants, and number one has 175 million inhabitants. So with less than 50 million people, Colombia is already number three, and is still growing. There are so many positive things happening here.

Dr. Mejia: I’m confident we will have a peace treaty. It does not mean we will have absolute peace, or that all violence will stop, but I do think we will have a quite different process. Let’s go back to the beginning: I think that with everything that has happened, there is a silent revolution in the qualification of Colombian universities. It is my opinion, that in the last 15 years there is a group of Colombian universities that have understood their role in society and in globalization, and are making a really serious effort at renovating themselves and bringing in teachers, training them, and I think those universities are supporting the idea of a new Colombia.

Finance Colombia: Continuing with that line of thought, something positive I have seen here, is that many people, students I’ve met who are first in their families to attend a university. Which initiatives and programs does EAFIT have in social inclusion? So that it is not just the case of: “I go to EAFIT because my father went to EAFIT.”—What is the university doing to include everyone else in the community?

Dr. Mejia: You are referring to one of the most delicate topics, because, at least in this stage of Colombia’s development, a university education is still, will be for some time, the biggest single factor in social mobility. What you are speaking of, I believe has great importance, and Colombian society is not yet generally aware of it: The possibility of access to universities for first generation students.

I will tell you first about national strategies and then about local ones, and then about EAFIT’s. Nationaly: I believe the program “Ser Pilo Paga,” with the 10,000 scholarships, faces the right direction. Just what you said: Based on the studies we’ve done, 98% of those students are 1st generation university students. Those are 10,000 families who will be forever different.

“Because the social image in society has been that EAFIT is the university of the economic elite. The great transformation we have tried to accomplish within this administration is to become known more as the university of the academic elite.”

In Medellín, a project, one of the first of its kind, with an agreement between the EPM Foundation and the universities, has given scholarships to some 24,000 students with limited resources so far. Imagine what this city would be like if those 24.000 hadn’t had this chance and had just stayed on street corners instead?

Another factor is what we do here inside the university. I imagine that in this moment we have some 1,800 students on scholarships. We make an effort in various ways. For one, we have a very beautiful program. Almost all university workers, 92% of them, to the extent of their abilities, we contribute a portion of our monthly salary into a fund and we use that to give scholarships to the best students in low-resource schools; we bring them to EAFIT.

But we don’t just only pay for their tuition, but we give them support for meals, transportation, and academic materials. We give them a daily meal allowance of $6,650 pesos for food in the university cafeterias, we provide $67,000 pesos monthly for transportation, and we give them an amount for supplies. And they are some of the best students, because they are the ones who make the most out of the university. The ones involved in all the cultural and social activities, sports; and I believe that is the way we can provide equity, and we are very proud of that.

“Now our doctoral students will be there solving real problems, real industry challenges, and obviously financed by the industry itself.”

Because the social image in society has been that EAFIT is the university of the economic elite. The great transformation we have tried to accomplish within this administration is to become known more as the university of the academic elite.

Finance Colombia: How will EAFIT be different three years from now than it is today? What initiatives are you launching?

Dr. Mejia: Several strategies. Number one: languages. We believe one of the factors that impedes competitiveness in the city is the lack of foreign language skills. Next month we will start to build a big language center, in two areas, one here in the south at the university, we expect to teach some 20,000 students every year in languages.

Auditorium of the Centro Argos Para La Innovacion being built on EAFIT’s campus. (courtesy Grupo Argos)

Number two: in sciences. We have created the new science school; we believe the industry and the private sector should have a scientific and technological livelihood in accord with our times, so we will strengthen the area of science academics.

And number three, we promote, above all, the great relationship between the companies and the university. We are about to open the research center Centro Argos Para La Innovacion, financed mainly Grupo Argos, who is building the research center here inside the university. We are negotiating with another three or four companies for them to bring their research and development entities into the university as well.

So for instance, Grupo Argos is investing 17 million dollars in this new research center, because according to their vision, by the year 2020, they expect 25% of their revenues to be generated by products that do not yet exist. So this will be the womb from where the new products and technologies will emerge.

For us that is very important, because it allows us to acquire research resources which for us alone would be very costly. They might have an atomic scanning (electron) microscope, which by ourselves would take long time to acquire, but now our doctoral students will be there solving real problems, real industry challenges, and obviously financed by the industry itself.

So that’s the third aspect, Loren. A great relationship with a great group of companies who have realized that without innovation their companies would be at risk in the future. So that’s what we go for: a great relationship between the university and the private sector.

Finance Colombia’s Loren Moss (above, left) sat down with Blokwise Co-Founder (along with her husband Camilo Botero) Evangelina Colasso to learn about Blokwise’s strategy, success to this point, and the importance of location to the studio’s “secret sauce” (or better said, chimichurri).

Finance Colombia: What can you tell me about Blokwise?

Evangelina Colasso:  I will tell you first a bit about the history in order to introduce the team and then I will tell you about the project. The company was created four years ago; we started in Brasil. There are two partners, Camilo who is Colombian, and myself—I’m from Argentina. Maybe you notice because of the accent! Ok, the headquarters were in Brasil because it was the place in Latin America that has more careers in videogames professionally, so we started there and had a year approximately, during the startup phase. It took us a while, and we decided to open a venue in Argentina to start expanding in the continent, because we do have big clients.

Finance Colombia: In Buenos Aires?

Evangelina Colasso:  And after that, we opened production here because we were interested in the offer they have here in Colombia: the Digital District, the innovation being promoted by the Government; Medellín is the city for that. Even in the capital, in Bogotá, they would speak about it constantly: ‘Medellín is the city of technology.’ And well, we decided to try it here, and once we saw that the team could work here, we pulled out all the stops. We began with 5 people, here at Ruta-N, now we are at 22.

One of Blokwise’s configurable office spaces in Ruta-N’s Technology business incubator in Medellín.

Finance Colombia:  How long?

Evangelina Colasso:  2 years.

Finance Colombia:  Wow.

Evangelina Colasso:  We’ve grown fast.

Finance Colombia: 400%!

Evangelina Colasso:  In general, we like the city.

Finance Colombia: Why Medellín? Why not Bogotá?

Evangelina Colasso:  Well, Bogotá has a traffic problem, quite important, on the other hand there are already companies, there is local competition you’d have to fight with other companies for resources, there is a higher cost of living, and we are aiming towards a business model which is basically attractive to foreign investors and to international clients. We can fulfill that objective from here. Our objective is to be able to capture both clients and investors, and we are doing that well.

Finance Colombia: What is your impression—I imagine that in some cases you have invited clients or potential clients to visit you, and they haven’t seen the city or Colombia, what is their impression when you show them around?

Evangelina Colasso:  Everybody has told me ‘what a pretty town,’ and then the mountains shock them, but because they come from the United States, where everything is mostly flat. Because I’m a foreigner, every time I come down from the airport into Medellín, I say ‘Wow! Such a lovely view!’ There are very beautiful things. They had told me about the quality of the people, they are very warm; everybody serves you well and treats you well. It is reflected in the personality of the people we work with, our employees. This warmth of the people in Medellín makes it so much friendlier. They are non-problematic people, very positive, and proactive, who want to work. I think those things are the ones that tempt us to say, ‘talent in Medellín is richer than maybe in the rest of the cities.’

If you are small and have no idea about your growth potential, you don’t know how successful your project can be, and you sign up for an office for three years and then it is too small. Here you can grow. “Today we are four, tomorrow we can be twenty, and I don’t need to move a finger to adapt it, I have the same conditions if I have 6, 10, 20, or 30.

Finance Colombia: And in the next few years, 2016-2017 how will Blokwise be different than it is now?

Evangelina Colasso:  We have an important project now and we are seeking investors in order to stop working solely for clients. We do work for hire, and we have revenue share with Cartoon Network, and with other clients as well. We publish a game in Latin America which gives us 50% of earnings, and now we are publishing it again worldwide, with 15% revenue share with Cartoon Network in the United States. Those are the two models we have now. Our intention is to preserve revenue sharing because the works are already published, but we want to start working with intellectual property, creating our own licenses. We feel we have been able to grasp the work given to us by clients. We have learned a lot in terms of video game development; we have been working for four years developing videogames. We feel prepared, and have learned from enough mistakes so as to now say ‘I’m looking for an investor.’

Finance Colombia: So you are looking for investors such as venture capital?

Evangelina Colasso:  Yes, private equity.

Finance Colombia: Ok, and how is Blokwise different, how are you innovative? Because there are plenty of companies who are able to do animation, to produce videogames, big and small, but Blokwise’s difference—Why should investors pay attention to you? What is the difference?

Evangelina Colasso:  We have several main advantages. The first one I believe is the experience, we have developed and currently develop games of the same nature as those required by the global corporations we serve. Beyond experience, we have learned to develop products with our own intellectual property. We reinvested those earnings we had with client jobs into our company to produce our own licensed products.

Finance Colombia: There are some examples of what you’ve done for Cartoon Network, The Regular Show is my favorite one!

Evangelina Colasso:  It is very good. In Spanish it’s ‘Un Show Más.’ I love it! It has a lot of spectacular content. It’s absurd, the amount of imagination the writer of that series has! There is also Tío Grandpa.

Finance Colombia: Uncle Grandpa! The crazy guy!

Evangelina Colasso:  It’s hilarious! It’s something quite impressive, let me tell you.

Finance Colombia: Yes, yes…

Evangelina Colasso:  Those are some of the best ones, and Clarence is also there.

Finance Colombia: The boy, yes, of course…

Evangelina Colasso:  This is the trailer of the game we are about to launch in the United States. Formula Cartoon All-Stars. Then you have the official videos and then the tens of thousands from the users. It was a great success, and this is just Latin America, you can imagine the international launch! This one will contain as new players, Clarence, Benson, Steven, Uncle Grandpa among others, and amazing new tracks and cars. The original Annoying Orange series was made by a student who uploaded it on YouTube and got a lot of followers, and Cartoon Network bought the series.

Finance Colombia: And apart from them, who are your clients?

Evangelina Colasso:  We have TNT apps. Cartoon Network came up with a new app called “Cartoon Network GO,” they produced it internally, and now they have given it to us to redo.

Finance Colombia: In what ways has Ruta-N helped you? You already have the location, but how did they make it easier for you to establish here in Medellín and reach the place you are now, from 5 to 22 and growing?

Evangelina Colasso:  It is quite important. When you arrive from the outside, you have nothing. Ruta N is about the landing of companies coming from the outside. Maybe you arrive with the talent, one or two along with you, you buy the computers, the basics and the necessities, but otherwise you have everything. There you have the meeting room, offices, the physical structure of a ready-made office, you just plug your machines in and start to work. When you have a startup or are an entrepreneur what you need is time for working, you don’t need to worry about paying the utility bills, all those things, distractions, something stupid like choosingwhat clothes to wear in the morning are micro thoughts you spend your time on, but you don’t have those distractions here at the office.

Finance Colombia: Yes, you have to focus.

Evangelina Colasso:  And everything has excellent quality, so that you can feel comfortable.

Finance Colombia: These are class-A offices. The prices are affordable even for a startup, and they also are friendly to the environment. It is impressive to see that this space is here to incubate and help grow entrepreneurs.

Evangelina Colasso:  Moreover, growth ability: if you are small and have no idea about your growth potential, you don’t know how successful your project can be, and you sign up for an office for three years and then it is too small. Here you can grow. “Today we are four, tomorrow we can be twenty, and I don’t need to move a finger to adapt it, I have the same conditions if I have 6, 10, 20, or 30. So I think this is a non explicit benefit, but that we felt because we grew. Every time we hired 5 people we had to change the office and to worry about things.

And beyond that, one of the most valuable things is the support Ruta-N gives you, the relationship with ProColombia, ACI, the networking, the information you receive, being surrounded by other businesses, there is a whole bunch of support from Ruta N, but also from the community itself. So it happens to be a collaboration. Ruta N does not do it alone, that’s the most interesting thing, if it were Ruta-N alone, it wouldn’t work. So, truly, it is a huge group with a vision of transforming Medellín into a city of [technology] services, and I think it is doing an excellent job. There are many cities trying to accomplish change, but not as transformational as we are experiencing here.

Blokwise is located inside Ruta-N, a technology park, business incubator and free zone anchored by Hewlett Packard. The building is LEED Gold certified, and features bike paths, bike sharing, and faclities, restaurants and social areas, auditoriums and meeting rooms, and access to two metro stations.

Finance Colombia: Fascinating. If you had to choose only one benefit that Medellín has, or if there is an entrepreneur or a company, what one reason should he or she consider to justify settling here in Medellín?

Evangelina Colasso:  If you are a big company like Hewlett Packard, the low costs will impact you a lot. Salaries, resources, I think it impacts them a lot, benefits them greatly. It happens to be a huge contrast. For large employers like HP, I’d say it’s fundamental.

There are many cities trying to accomplish change, but not as transformational as we are experiencing here.

Finance Colombia: Without sacrifying quality?

Evangelina Colasso:  Exactly. Maybe videogames, our market, it is a little bit more difficult, because you don’t sacrifice a person’s quality, but most of the students here are not already professionals, so we have to teach them, instruct them, bring people from the outside, which in terms of cost is still more affordable, than someone from California. Everybody knows about videogames there, there are a whole lot of programmers, game designers, impressive artists; among the best in the world—but the costs, who can keep up with them? How can I sell our concept to [prospective employees] at a better price, and tell them that in Latin America they have an opportunity, and we offer the same price they may get from a local company. It is not about growing as a company, but as a total environment. I would love to see videogames flourish here in Medellín, because the stronger we are as a community, the better represented we are in the world as a company. And then one day they start seeing Medellín as the city of videogames—I wish to see that, so we can say ‘we have an industry guild, we support each other and do things together and commercialize worldwide’—that’s my vision.

Our objective as a company is to become the best racing videogame company. It would be much easier if Medellín was the most important video game city in Latin America, which I believe, can be reached because there is the capacity here, and a lot of people like video games, it’s unimaginable.

The source from where we have had the most success is CESDE.

Who else did we work with, to bring talent? We have dealt with several universities, but the source from where we have had the most success is CESDE. With Camilo we speak a lot about education, how it is not cost-effective for companies to hire people who have studied so many years, with such professional experience already, to start out doing simple tasks, so we very much agree with this philosophy of simplifying education, making it shorter and more objective, more specific, and CESDE is a clear example of that. There is so much talent studying there! And the good thing is, it is not attended by students with a lot of resources. The social aspect is also very attractive, giving opportunities not necessarily to people born into all the advantages, but to someone who really needs it.

Finance Colombia: What else would you like for the reader to know about Blokwise?

Evangelina Colasso:  Good question. I think it is not just about us, it’s about all of Latin America, that Latin American talent has huge potential. There are things happening here in Latin America, and people outside don’t realize it. One of them is the amount of human talent we have here, it’s impressive. We hired some time ago an illustrator with such ability, that guy could be working for Pixar easily, he makes the same quality of illustrations we receive from Pixar’s film “UP,” and you see the work and say ‘beautiful, we won’t find people like that here,’ but here they are. They are here! We had an interview, and a lot of people came. Amazing! So I think, it’s not just about our company, but in Latin America in general. There is a lot of talent, and I believe that can be seen in our company, a lot. We have captured a lot of talent. There are a lot of people who love videogames, who have thought about their games all their lives, ever since they were children they wanted to design games, and made the effort so even if there is no career opportunity they are self-taught by searching the internet: “What is a game designer?” and they learned on their own.