Author's note (June 2026): I wrote this in my notes in June 2015, shortly after presenting TALS at ExpoBiz Panama. It was one of the first moments I understood that TALS could be something more than a personal project.

Panama 2015: The Entrepreneurship Ecosystem I Didn't Know Existed

Why Panama

In late 2013, finishing my Computer Science degree, a chain of contacts led me to a work opportunity in Panama. It wasn't a position in my field — it was promotion and warehouse management. But it was the chance to leave Venezuela at a moment when staying was becoming increasingly difficult, and to experience new realities I knew would teach me things no book could.

Immigration isn't like university courses. It's a series of experiences — many good, some not — where the ones that hurt most are also the ones that shape you most.

In Panama I worked as a marketing promoter, then as a laser cutting equipment operator in the advertising and design department. Eventually I was given the opportunity to design directly: adapting graphics for major and mid-sized companies. It was my first real contact with graphic design applied to business — a skill I would later use in TALS and VeanX branding.

First contact with an entrepreneurial ecosystem

In Venezuela I knew that entrepreneurship competitions existed — I had applied to Fundación Ideas without passing the preliminary round. But I had no idea what a broader entrepreneurial ecosystem was: incubators, accelerators, mentor programs, angel investors, pitch events.

In Panama I was recommended to apply to Founder Institute — the world's largest pre-acceleration program, present in dozens of cities. I applied with TALS, which at that time was still a very early-stage project without a functional prototype.

The application process itself was formative: I had to articulate the problem, solution, and market in a format that forced clarity and conciseness. It was the first time I described TALS to someone who didn't know me, in a form that could be read by investors.

The presentation at ExpoBiz Panama 2015

ExpoBiz was my first real entrepreneurship event: a startup, innovation, and business fair at the Atlapa Convention Center in Panama City.

Presenting TALS at an event of that scale was a completely new experience. For someone who had built the idea in isolation in Venezuela and had never spoken about the project to an unknown audience, it was like jumping into the deep end.

The reception was good. I made friends. I met people who encouraged me to continue with the project despite how complex it was to present something with a social-technology focus in an ecosystem where most projects had more direct business models.

The most valuable thing wasn't the recognition — it was understanding that the idea could interest people with no emotional connection to me. When a stranger stops at your booth, listens, asks intelligent questions, and then tells you "this matters" — something changes in how you relate to your own project.

The Stephan Schmidheiny Awards: second phase

The Stephan Schmidheiny Awards are a distinction with Swiss backing that supports projects with social and environmental impact in Latin America. Reaching the second phase of selection with TALS was a significant recognition.

What mattered most about that process wasn't reaching the second phase — it was understanding that specific awards and funds existed oriented toward social impact projects. In Venezuela I had no access to that information. In Panama I started to see the complete picture: the global ecosystem of social impact funding had organizations, criteria, and opportunities I was completely unaware of.

That broadened my vision of what TALS could be. Not just a technical project to solve a local problem — potentially a social impact project aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals, one that could interest international funds.

The Founder Institute pre-selection: the cost of being left halfway

Reaching Founder Institute's pre-selection in Panama was, at that moment, the most concrete recognition TALS had received. Out of dozens of applicants, I passed the evaluation filters to be selected for the incubation stage.

But my migration status wasn't stable. I was in Panama on a tourist visa, without formal work authorization. Staying to continue the incubation program wasn't legally viable.

I left Panama with my return tickets already purchased — first to Venezuela to visit my family, then to Chile, where I planned to continue the project with more structure and more experience than the first time I left Venezuela.

Before leaving, the notification arrived: I had been formally selected for Founder Institute's incubation program in Panama.

I had to decline.

What is lost and what is gained

Declining Founder Institute was one of those moments where concrete migration limitations collide directly with opportunity. At that moment it felt like a significant loss.

Over time I understood it was simply timing being timing: the opportunity arrived when the conditions weren't right. The same opportunity, or an equivalent one, would arrive when conditions allowed. And it did — in Chile, two years later.

What Panama did permanently leave me with:

The vocabulary of the ecosystem. I learned what pre-acceleration is, what a program like FI looks for, how an early-stage startup is evaluated. That vocabulary is the first step to navigating the entrepreneurial ecosystem.

The experience of public pitching. Preparing a 90-second pitch for ExpoBiz — explaining something almost nobody knows (the communication gap in the deaf community) to an audience that's never thought about it — is training with no substitute. I learned that problem clarity matters more than solution sophistication.

The Latin American network. Contacts I maintained for years, entrepreneurs from different countries with whom I shared the experience of building something from very little. Those connections, though geographically scattered, are part of the real network built over a trajectory.

What Panama changed in TALS

Before Panama, TALS was an idea I knew very well and the outside world hadn't seen.

After Panama, TALS was an idea that had survived public exposure, that had interested external judges, and that I had explained multiple times to people who knew nothing about sign language or computer vision.

That exposure changed how I understood the project. It stopped being "what I want to build" and started being "what the market needs and I can build." The difference is subtle but fundamental for building something with real traction.

Two years later, in Chile, that difference translated into concrete victories.