A few weeks ago, Vivek Wadhwa visited Mexico and wrote about the possible opportunities he saw for the Mexican IT sector, noting manufacturing plans. In his article, he suggested that the Mexican technology industry “leapfrog India” by moving away from IT services and into a different emerging market, grabbing the opportunity of re-automating the American manufacturing industry on markets like artificial intelligence, 3D printing and robotics.

Mexico is graduating roughly 130,000 engineers every year, so the amount of skilled professional talent needed to achieve these tech goals is available. Vivek pointed to a lack of confidence as a hindrance to success in Mexican tech. In another article, he closes with the words “there is no reason a Steve Jobs can’t be born in Mexico.” However, there are at least another two major challenges: the flight of talent (mainly to the U.S.) and the amount of resources being wasted on building entrepreneurial sand castles.

via While There Are Some Glimpses Of Progress, Mexico Faces A Long Road To Innovation | TechCrunch.