Pablo Brenner & Sergio Fogel Blog

Creo que exagero un poco, pero siempre es bueno recibir este tipo de apoyo.

Tom Friedman calls Endeavor’s model “the best anti-poverty program of all”

Tuesday, 24 July 2007 – In an updated and expanded paperback edition of The World Is Flat, New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman calls Endeavor’s model for high-impact entrepreneurship “the best anti-poverty program of all.”

“Endeavor (www.endeavor.org) was formed for the purpose of promoting entrepreneurship in emerging markets,” Friedman writes in the chapter entitled “If It’s Not Happening, It’s Because You’re Not Doing It.” “Its basic model is to link up small and midsize businesses with seasoned entrepreneurs so that the little guys and gals can get the advice and contacts they need to grow their companies into bigger businesses that can employ more people.”

Friedman’s praises Endeavor’s “mentor capitalist” model for helping midsize entrepreneurs to expand and create jobs and innovation in developing countries worldwide. “As important as it is to help make poor people into small business people,” Friedman says, “it is just as important to make small business people in a developing country into big business people who can employ lots of their neighbors.” “(I)t is precisely these sorts of middle-class start-ups and small businesses that create the most jobs and the greatest innovation in a society.”

This is the “pro-entrepreneurship” example that Friedman says has the “inspirational power” to encourage individuals in the developing world, where role models are scarce, to think big. “There is no greater motivator for the poor than looking at one of their own who makes it big and saying: ‘If she can do it, I can do it.’”

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y a Pancho Gross (emprendedor uruguayo)

U.S. Commerce Secretary hails Endeavor for «creating opportunity» in Latin America.

President and Mrs. Bush hosted the White House Conference of the Americas last week, where U.S. Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez hailed Endeavor for «creating opportunity» in Latin America by supporting innovative and visionary high-impact entrepreneurs. The Secretary spoke to a gathering of over 250 non-governmental organizations, the private sector and volunteer groups focused on the southern hemisphere, where expanding economic opportunity was a key topic.

Endeavor has «hundreds of case studies of successful Latin American pioneers» Secretary Gutierrez said and he pointed to Uruguayan Endeavor Entrepreneur Francisco Gross‘ company, Seinco, as an example. Helping deliver drinkable water and wastewater management through affordable water treatment devices, Seinco as a «patented product is so affordable and efficient that the company has been hired to consult with companies in China,» said the Secretary.

Secretary Gutierrez also highlighted Endeavor Entrepreneur Carlos Marin, whose Mexican-based Alltournative, «is supporting thousands of impoverished Mayan Indians by helping them develop a sustainable tourism infrastructure. So far, over 200,000 tourists have visited the Alltournative-Mayan sites.»

For the full text of Secretary Gutierrez’s speech, click here

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