Latin America has a surplus of talent — and a shortage of innovation

(Photo: Mel Evans AP)

Amid the bloodshed in Venezuela, the corruption scandal in Brazil and the stream of bizarre statements coming out of President Trump’s Twitter feed, a very important news item has gone almost unnoticed in Latin America: A new study says the region is failing miserably in innovation.

The Global Innovation Index 2017, a ranking of 130 countries across the world, says that African, Eastern European and Southeast Asian countries are doing much better than Latin America when it comes to modernizing their economies and producing more sophisticated goods and services that help their economies grow faster.

The study is a collaborative effort by Cornell University’s College of Business, the European business school INSEAD and the United Nations’ World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The annual ranking is based on dozens of measurements, including the number of new invention patents filed by each country, educational achievements and the ease of doing business.

The ranking does not list one single Latin American country among the 25 most innovative nations, despite the fact that three countries in the region — Brazil, Mexico and Argentina — are among the world’s 25 biggest economies.

To continue reading this article click The Miami Herald