NEXO: Designing a community to foster high-impact entrepreneurship and innovation in Latin America

Abstract

Many Latin American governments have increased the number of programs to support entrepreneurs and encourage the creation and growth of small businesses. However, the results are still not satisfactory and many of these new ventures fail after their first years of operation due to various factors factors that include inadequate training, experience, support, as well as lack of internationalization. By identifying the causes of such failures and developing a system to facilitate collaboration and knowledge exchange among young entrepreneurs, mentors and investors across the world, it may be possible to introduce team-based innovation challenges and grow a grassroots network of sustainable enterprises with unique products and services. A proposed solution is Nexo, a Community for High-impact Entrepreneurs that includes strategies to facilitate face-to-face and virtual collaboration among young people, as a means to encourage entrepreneurship and innovation activity with existing local networks and telecommunications technologies. The implementation of the project is explained in four phases and a rough concept prototype of Nexo geared for the development of new small businesses.