Ten small Costa Rican companies with the necessary human talent to export their product to Canada would soon do so thanks to the support of the National Training Institute (INA) and its “Upload” program. These are SMEs that would develop specific applications and software for certain industries, in a highly competitive world. The initiative is coordinated by the Costa Rican Foreign Trade Promoter (Procomer), the INA and the Canadian Accelerator Center (AC).
The objective of the program is that SMEs are trained and transform their business models to scale their services to the Canadian market, this through the identification of competitive gaps and the implementation of a training program.
La Creativería, which is a developer of software, websites and mobile applications, Golabs Enterprise in the field of artificial intelligence, mobile and web development and Sabana Tech also in artificial intelligence, are some of the companies that took advantage of the opportunity.
Sophisticated and highly diversified export offer
“Our country’s services export offer is sophisticated and highly diversified, characteristics that we want to show the world, especially the Canadian market, where there are opportunities for our exporters. Through Upload, and thanks to the alliance with the INA, we are preparing this group of companies to increase their competitiveness in this market”, said Pedro Beirute, general manager of Procomer.
For INA, it is important to continue supporting growth initiatives for the country’s business establishment”, according to Adriana Aguilar, head of INA’s Unit for Business Promotion and Development.
Canada´s Acceleration Program
“Through the contribution of 90% of the total cost of this Upload 2022 Canada Acceleration Program, the INA develops this scholarship program, where it joins together with Procomer to promote the export of services, mainly in markets with great growth potential, for Costa Rican companies”, Aguilar highlighted.
The training program initiated by these ten SMEs will take place over five months and consists of group mentoring, individual sessions and online workshops, led by the accelerator, through which they will be able to transform their business models. In addition, they will participate in different networking events in which they will validate their services and models.
At the end of the program, SMEs are expected to be able to identify the sectors in which they could be more competitive according to their capabilities, develop a specialized value proposition and commercial materials that allow them to present themselves adequately to potential clients and investors.
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