Initially from Brazil, Alex beforehand lived in Chile and now lives in Spain.
Throughout his time dwelling in Latin America in early 2016, Alex noticed what he describes as a “data hole”—seeing the best way expertise, content material and experience are shared in an open, pleasant means at conferences within the US, Alex needed to duplicate that in Latin America.
To handle this hole, Alex began planning meetups. “Our first meetup began in a Starbucks espresso store, with just some folks round a desk. Rapidly, they remodeled into gatherings with as much as 70 folks in a chosen room. My purpose was to create an area for information fans in Latin America to share data with others.” Alex estimates he ran over 50 meetups with over 1,000 attendees in whole, permitting folks to attach over know-how and meet quite a lot of distributors and other people working within the area.
“It was a stunning expertise to share my data, get in contact with folks, and practice others! I noticed the best way the open supply neighborhood works and the way folks engaged to share skilled experiences, and that motivated me to do the identical factor in Latin America.”
Utilizing his contacts at a number of universities and know-how faculties in Chile, he started to advertise an area the place information fans might join, whereas additionally providing coaching alternatives for professionals and college students to achieve employment and due to this fact diminish the technical hole, beginning with hands-on workshops showcasing the know-how. However Alex likes a problem, and needed to do one thing greater—a convention. His pal Max stated, “Are you positive about that?” And Alex definitively answered “Sure!”
Solely utilizing their contacts and networks, Alex and Max started to prepare their first occasion. “That first occasion, we had 400 attendees at a one-day convention, combining hands-on labs with delivered content material. The thought was to deliver native folks from native companies and universities collectively to study from that content material. It was wonderful! It was actually laborious work as a result of we had no funds, however we achieved our purpose—to deliver data and other people collectively.”
With the income generated from that first convention, Alex and staff donated to an area nonprofit supporting know-how schooling for ladies and women, and set to work planning their second occasion.
In partnership with Telefónica, the 2019 convention introduced in 600 attendees, along with distributors reminiscent of Google and AWS. Alex and Max teamed up with Federico to launch an enormous information convention chapter in Buenos Aires, Argentina, with over 400 attendees. Even because the attain and enter grew, the core mission of the occasions remained the identical: to share data and produce information fans collectively. “The people who attended these conferences began out with zero data about information, and now they haven’t solely information literacy however a community of friends. These attendees would by no means in any other case have the prospect to listen to from folks within the trade about achievements, failures, and classes realized,” he says.
“Their suggestions was the gasoline to inspire us to proceed giving again increasingly. These occasions are the most important skilled achievements in my profession.”
Sadly, the pandemic put future conferences on pause (though they’ve since began once more!), and through this time Alex moved to Spain. He began delivering extra content material on information to native universities. This culminated in an invite from the Faculty of Administration in Madrid asking Alex to ship information and open-source content material and share skilled experiences with a global viewers of scholars.
“For some folks, this helped them to appreciate that information is their ardour, one thing they need to dedicate extra time to as knowledgeable specialty.”
Reflecting again, Alex notes that friendship was a key element to this work. “We discovered actually good folks to work with alongside the best way. As a result of we had no monetary sources, we needed to be open, collaborative, and resourceful all through the planning course of.” On the occasions, friendship and networking was additionally a major element. “These gatherings have been a chance for attendees to satisfy reachable professionals, who’re open to communication and keen to assist.” In the end, enhancing entry to employment and schooling within the information area, selling friendship and connection and supporting various entry into the information trade is what Alex is keen about.
Alex is now volunteering with Médicos del Mundo in Spain, because of an initiative to attach college alumni with NGOs to share their skilled and specialist data. “In our enterprise, particularly through the gross sales cycle, we’re focussed on closing offers. However on this case, the influence is completely different—there’s no financial return, however we join with folks with completely different expertise, and I’m studying extra concerning the influence that these NGOs have. I’m at the moment a part of a bunch of volunteers working with Médicos del Mundo, to prioritize their digital transformation over the following three years, ensuring they’ll implement options which might be impactful for them and the folks they assist, with the sources they’ve.”
