During a speech at the CybertechLive Latin America online conference, Panama’s commerce minister said the park is part of a plan to transform the country into the digital hub of the region.
The Panamanian government and Israel’s Innovation BaseCamp company announced Tuesday they will collaborate on a high-tech park project aimed at transforming Panama into one of Latin America’s leading countries in terms of innovation.
The announcement came during the CybertechLive Latin America online conference, a one-day event by Israel’s Cybertech that brought together government officials, industry experts, academics, companies and startups from around the region.
“Part of the goal of this administration is to make Panama the business hub of the region. Understanding that the future is digital. And that the natural advantages of our country makes us an ideal place to become the digital hub of the region,” he said.
BaseCamp is an initiator and manager of innovation ecosystems that was behind the development of the Gav Yam Negev hi-tech park in the city of Beersheva. It is also engaged in various projects in other countries.
The minister noted that in January he was part of a Panamanian delegation that attended the Cybertech Global conference in Tel Aviv. The delegation met with BaseCamp during the conference and had the opportunity to visit the hi-tech park.
As BaseCamp was looking for locations in Latin America to establish another tech park, the delegation met with them to discuss how Panama could be a perfect location, according to the minister.
The CEO and founder of BaseCamp, Uzy Zwebner, said his company is looking forward to the collaboration.
“At BaseCamp we make economic development by innovation. And we are very, very happy to collaborate with Panama’s government in order to create a technology ecosystem based on a high-tech park that will make Panama a leading country in innovation in Latin America,” he said.
Zwebner pointed out there were no hi-tech job opportunities in Beersheva when his company started building the hi-tech park seven years ago, but today the park has about 70 companies with a total of about 3,000 employees.
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This is great for Panama as Panama is a natural best choice for a tech hub, although they will have to look outside of Panama for talent and make it easy for tech talent to immigrate to and work in Panama. There are fortunately so many examples of small countries changing quickly. Panama should look at Estonia as they put the government into the most technologically advanced and digital government in the world. Doing that would make the government an ally to economic growth in Panama rather than a hindrance as it is now.