Babson Professor of Management Practice, Daniel Isenberg, spent the week of October 25 consulting and speaking in the city of Medellin Colombia. The trip was sponsored by the Medellin Mayor’s office, EAFIT (a leading technology institute), and Comforma, all of which have been collaborating since the early 2000s to create an entrepreneurial culture in the city, with impressive results: crime and drug-related business have decreased dramatically, and the various entrepreneurship programs have generated hundreds of start-ups.

“Each of the 30 or so universities has a government-supported entrepreneurship center, several of which have dozens of startups using the facilities and support services to launch ventures in media, services, biotechnology, software, and IT. In November the city government will also launch a multi-acre innovation center in Medellin’s inner city to accommodate innovative businesses and ventures which have outgrown the university centers. The seeds of dozens of high potential companies have been sewn over the past five of six years of intense investment, and now the challenge is to shepherd those ventures onto a high growth path.”

Professor Isenberg gave several presentations on how to create entrepreneurship eco-systems at the regional and national levels, and worked with several of the public organizations to help accelerate their entrepreneurship programs.

“It is quite inspiring that entrepreneurship programs can help combat devastating crime and despair, and replace them with hope and aspiration. One of the city government programs has guaranteed and subsidized a $30 million program which has disbursed almost 40,000 loans to disadvantaged populations to support small businesses, with less than a 3% default rate,” Isenberg reported. “It’s all about enlightened, skillful, and committed public leadership.” In recent years Medellin’s murder rate has fallen to the level of most US cities, despite the fact that its reputation remains.