WASHINGTON, June 24 (UPI) -- Entrepreneurship can be taught and will prove instrumental in helping Latin America spur economic growth, experts said at a forum Thursday.
The forum, hosted by the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington, D.C., examined the factors that contribute to the entrepreneurship process in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Rodrigo Varela, director of the Entrepreneurship Development Center at the Icesi University in Colombia, said his program was created in 1985 to change a culture of bureaucrats and promote initiative.
"We had as a first objective to develop a culture of entrepreneurship," he said. "In Latin America, this culture is opaque, hidden."
In a global economy that is shifting more and more from labor and capital to knowledge, universities play a central role, helping to create local technology centers in Austin, Texas, and Madison, Wis., said David Audretsch, director of the Institute for Development Strategies at Indiana University. Audretsch said the same experience could be replicated in Latin America if emphasis is placed on initiative.
"What matters is having kids who can think for themselves, be creative," he said.
