Signed by New York engineer Christian Serron, director of the Bros. software factory, the document points out that from the first successful implantation of a pacemaker in America, in 1960 by doctors Orestes Fiandra and Roberto Rubio, to the creation of the mammography test, "Uruguay made technological achievements that seem statistically impossible for a country of its size" (176,215 square kilometers and 3.5 million inhabitants).
With an ever-expanding IT industry, and more than 700 technology companies exporting software in 52 different markets, "Uruguay is also the leading software exporter per capita in South America, and the third largest in the world," says Serron in his report.
It also recalls that Harvard University "recently identified Uruguay as one of the most advanced software development centers in the region".
"In the same way that Silicon Valley's success story is not simply a matter of chance," he says, "Uruguay's success in the IT industry is the result of a sophisticated government master plan, combined with a series of timely circumstances.
Bros compares the U.S. government's subsidy policy in the San Francisco Bay Area after World War II until the late 1970s with the "outstanding tax benefits and government incentives that have been applied in Uruguay over the last decade.
In this sense, it points out that the most relevant benefit for global IT firms is the 100% income tax exemption for the payment obtained through exports of software and related services (Decree 150/2007).
Another parallel detected in the study is the talent of established professionals, and young university graduates, from Silicon Valley with the fact that Uruguay in 2018 became one of the first countries in the world to adopt the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) program, a project aimed at bringing computing to children in the developing world.
As a result, today almost all of Uruguay's 300,000 public school students have their own computers and many high school graduates are enrolled in computer science or engineering programs, notes Serron.
Another common point is the implementation of co-working spaces for young entrepreneurs, which are part of the core of any Uruguayan startup and represent a solution to the problem of isolation that many freelancers experience working at home, the document points out.
Another key factor, according to the report published in Medium, is the economic free trade zones that have been operating in Uruguay for more than 20 years, free of all taxes, including those applied to dividends paid to shareholders and VAT on construction and equipment necessary for their operation.
In addition to being a regional logistics hub (thanks to its natural port), Uruguay is a leader in communications in Latin America according to the International Telecommunication Union's 2014-2015 Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) Development Index, which measures Internet penetration and mobile phone use and other related indicators, highlights.
He also emphasizes that Montevideo has "a thriving 'startup' scene, most notably in the gaming industry, similar to what was once the Homebrew Computer Club in Menlo Park, California," which caught the attention of the well-known accelerator "500 Startup," which in June 2017 announced its arrival in Uruguay as part of the Montevideo Accelerator Program.
Source: El Espectador
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