Activa-CATIE event brings together innovative entreprises in Costa Rica's rural sector

• The activity was attended by enterprises that have been supported by Activa-CATIE.

May 7, 2022. The event "Connecting innovative ventures in the rural sector with key development actors" organized by Activa-CATIE, brought together a total of 13 Costa Rican ventures with the objective of connecting their representatives with new opportunities for innovation, sustainable development projects, investments, and markets.

Since 2020, the Activa-CATIE incubator has been working on innovation and technology for rural development. Thanks to the support of CATIE (Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center) and Sistema de Banca para el Desarrollo (SBD), 23 ventures in the rural sector of Costa Rica have benefited.

The activity, held at CATIE's campus yesterday, May 6, was attended by the current Minister of Agriculture and Livestock of Costa Rica, Renato Alvarado; and Muhammad Ibrahim, general director of CATIE, who offered words of welcome and expressed the importance of promoting green and inclusive businesses, as well as profitable and quality.

"It has been an honor to work with CATIE and support the processes it develops, one of the nicest and in which I have felt more comfortable is Activa (...) The accompaniment and strategic alliance that Activa has made in CATIE with the Development Bank has allowed financing these innovative ventures, with non-refundable resources and it is very important that activities like these continue to be developed and that Activa continues to be the support it has been for the ventures (...)," said Alvarado.

Also present were Bruce Montador, member of CATIE's Board of Directors; Marcial Chaverri, coordinator of access to financing of the Foreign Trade Promoter of Costa Rica (PROCOMER); and Diego Chin, coordinator of innovation and entrepreneurship of SBD.

Vladimir Valera, director of Activa, presented the main results and opportunities for the incubator, which has delivered a total of USD 150,000 in seed capital distributed among the 23 ventures and, for the period 2022-2023, has doubled the mobilization of resources through a new agreement for more than USD 300,000 to deliver to 30 ventures.

The event was configured under different participatory sessions; the first consisted of a panel with entrepreneurs to exchange stories, challenges, main achievements and progress in their businesses, as well as their motivations in the path of entrepreneurship at the Costa Rican level; the second one included a networking segment and a tour of the different stands, which were made up of Blanco y Negro, Nortico, Miela, Innobovino, Vertical Farms, La Vieja Adventures, Bosque Vivo, Fungus Lab, Vainilla y Miel del Caribe, Cerro Luna Avícola Ecológica, Finca Xoloitzcuintle, Plantech, and Mariposario Agronatura. The objective of this space was to connect ideas, make connections and learn more about each of the enterprises and their products.

Finally, the activity closed with a third segment made up of Johana Rodríguez, manager of innovation and entrepreneurship at SBD; Cynthia Castro, co-founder of Efecto Boomerang; José Luis Fernández, chief operating officer of Ícaro; Emmanuel Picado, manager of digital agriculture at the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA); and Carlos Araya, director of business development and strategic alliances of CATIE, who shared tips and opportunities to promote businesses in the start-up phase and those that are already in more advanced stages of development, as well as the importance of implementing actions with a gender perspective.

"Obviously we want to generate an impact that is positive in the social and environmental sphere, but that generates resources for us. Let us always seek to have businesses that are profitable, but make sure that this business also does good for someone; hopefully many people will benefit from the business you are developing," concluded Araya.

Activa-CATIE's vision is to build a platform to implement more incubation programs in different areas of the rural sector and contribute to the creation of new innovative enterprises for sustainable development.