As of today, the Atlantic has a new Innovation District for Creative and Cultural Industries

Starting today, April 1, the Arunuka-Lab, a consolidated Creative and Cultural Industries Innovation District for the department of Atlántico, was launched thanks to the special cooperation agreement reached between the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation and the Center of Excellence Foundation in Innovation Systems

“This initiative, which is being launched today in front of several representatives of the public, private, cultural and academic sectors, aims to build a smart specialization strategy that links with the potential of the Atlantic Department to strengthen the region's capacities in science, technology, innovation and entrepreneurship,” said Minister Tito Crissien.

The project, which seeks to democratize knowledge and enhance the territory's CTEI+e (Science, Technology and Innovation, plus Education) capabilities, through the specialized use of industries 4.0, was consolidated thanks to a total investment of $5,410,000,000, of which $4,850,000,000 is contributed by the National Government and $560 .000.000 in return.

“Arunuka-Lab was born as an initiative at the service of citizens who want to start up in the creative industries, in knowledge-based industries, where they will find all the support available to turn that business idea into a high-impact one. They will also find those strategic partners that will put the digitization component, the technology component, the entire business intelligence component, so that they can serve a market that is increasingly demanding with the products and services we are generating,” said José Polo Otero, CEO of Vertical-i.

He also added that the creation of a cleverly specialized district of Atlantic creative industries guarantees a commitment that was built between the Ministry and the active work of his company, which is responsible for creating business ideas. This commitment will benefit more than 400 entrepreneurial minded entrepreneurs.

“We are going to redefine public policy, we need to map what those innovation districts are to engage all actors and we need to know where the world is moving to see where resources will go,” Polo said.

He invited all entrepreneurs to participate in the call for this strategy and get the resources to develop their business ideas

The CEO of Vertical-i will be in charge of the strategy and said that the Atlantic Innovation District will create a “high” impact and that is why a deployment of activities in smart industries will be carried out to define what the competitive advantage is.

For his part, the mayor of Barranquilla, Jaime Pumarejo, thanked MinCiencias and pondered that “from Barranquilla, with projects like this, we can mark quality jobs, we can bring visitors, tourists, resources, we can generate companies that allow culture to be a way of living with dignity, that generates income, but also that technology is an engine of development for the city”.

In the same vein, Eduardo Crissien, the rector of the University of the Coast, said that these strategies can develop new projects and ideas that promote science, technology and innovation in the city.

“The Caribbean region has been characterized as an important point at the cultural and artistic level. This shows us that academia is one of the best sectors to work for,” said the rector.

KEEP READING: