For several years, Bogota has been dreaming of a science, technology and innovation campus, comparable to many of those that exist in the world, whose benefits in terms of quality of life, business solutions and greening of urban spaces are evident.

The purpose is to foster collaboration between academia, the public and private sectors, and the citizenry, to ensure that Bogota becomes a benchmark for the knowledge economy in Latin America. The fruits of this coordinated work will be visible when Bogota is recognized in the region as the capital of knowledge and innovative ideas.

There are numerous cases in the world that are a clear example of the opportunity that this great project represents for Bogota. One example worth mentioning is that of Barcelona and its urban renewal model. The Poblenou neighborhood went from being an industrial area to become an epicenter of knowledge and technology with the 22@ Innovation District, attracting numerous companies and generating direct jobs.

For the Bogota Chamber of Commerce, it is clear that true innovation arises when significant connections are generated between different actors. Therefore, the campus is structured as a mega-project designed to promote meetings, create knowledge and strengthen the exchange of ideas between society, academia and the public and private sectors, in order to develop solutions that impact the community and businesses through science, technology and innovation.

One of the most significant paradigms of this project is the possibility of bringing together in one place the actors of the quadruple helix, generating greater opportunities for innovation through co-creation processes among participants with different potentials.

Undoubtedly, having a solid science, technology and innovation ecosystem will be a great catalyst for this urban transformation to be effective. Among the clearest objectives of the campus in Bogota is to improve the competitiveness of companies and entrepreneurs, offering spaces such as a knowledge transfer and training center, a minimum viable product laboratory and coworking and networking areas , among others.

In addition, it seeks to strengthen startups and offer them the opportunity to scale, providing in a single space business strengthening services, access to resources for acceleration and a suitable environment to create, develop and promote new projects. This represents a great opportunity to generate high-value companies and accelerate the creation of unicorns.

For this process to be viable, one of the lines of work will be to promote access to investment capital and international markets, making projects and business opportunities visible, coordinating with investment funds and sophisticating the exportable offer. It is worth mentioning a study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which indicates that companies located in Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) districts have 15% higher productivity than those located in other areas.

All this must be accompanied by social mobility and the strengthening of human talent in areas of high demand. In this sense, the CTIB will contribute to training in specialties derived from the appropriation of new technologies, closing gaps between the profiles required by companies and the available labor supply, and supporting the attraction of high-level talent.

The CTeI Campus and the construction of smart cities.

The CTeI Campus aligns perfectly with the vision of Bogota as a smart city by fostering innovation and the adoption of emerging technologies. This is not just an urban project, it is the foundation of a fundamental transformation that promises to bring our city to smart city status. With its implementation, we will move towards a more connected Bogota, with greater innovative capacity and a strong commitment to solving urban challenges and the well-being of its inhabitants.