Vinton Cerf (Google VP and who is recognized as one of "the fathers of the Internet") said: "In Asturias, they transformed a coal mining area into a Silicon Valley with 600 companies and 2,000 IT and telecommunications engineers.They've gone from "carbón" to "ratón". In English, that means from "coal" to "mouse".
The main regional industry in recent times was coal mining and steel production. The steel industry is now in downward trend, reducing workforce and investment, same as mining some years ago, basically due to high production costs compared to other regions.
Almost 20 years ago Asturias decided to bet by IT as a way to spread the market and be able to offer a new professional career to next generations. As a result of all those efforts, nowadays, some of the most important IT Global Corporations (CSC, Cap Gemini, Indra or Software AG) provide several services over the globe from their Asturian Delivery Centers. Moreover, other international communities, W3C or the European Center for Soft Computing have followed same behavior and decided to locate their country headquarters in Asturias. Besides all this changes, there have been other important local initiative funded by public and private investors which are supporting that industry change acting as hub to facilitate IT development inside public sector and small&medium business such as Cluster TIC, The mile of knowledge, or CTIC.
This cultural change came together with new local companies creations, all of them high knowledge intensive delivering their own products around the globe. Also, Local University has adapted to this new work market and it's offering several technological degrees, masters and maximizing other languages learning.
All these statements are the best ingredients to get the best recipe, so now a group of these people want to take the lead and be the facilitators to cook our best plate. A long travel to develop the highest synergy between startups, workers and business angels is ready to start
Best of all it’s you can be part of it. On October, StartupGrind will arrive to Asturias, we want to give the opportunity to all stakeholders to share their capabilities and look for engagements within each others. Steve Jobs said, “stay hungry, stay foolish”, so we are cooking our best recipe to satisfy hunger and want to share it within all fool people which in current economic environment are brave enough to become entrepreneur…
So, quoting Sir Ernest Shackleton: People Wanted: For hazardous journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success...
Welcome to StartupGrind Asturias!