Efforts to increase entrepreneurship near the border of Mexico are at the center of a new program hosted by the Arrowhead Center at New Mexico State University.
Nine companies from Mexico and Texas have signed up to join a virtual accelerator program hosted by New Mexico State University. The five-week accelerator is funded as part of an agreement between the Science and Technology State Council in Sonora, Mexico, and the Innovation and Competitiveness Institute and Economic Development and Tourism Direction in Chihuahua, Mexico.
The program ends Oct. 27 and is put on in collaboration with Arrowhead Center’s Hunt Center for Entrepreneurship and Foster Innovation Exchange.
Mentoring and access to facilities will be made available with instruction on topics including customer discovery and market fit. Graduates will be able to join Arrowhead Ventures, which provides follow-up support to companies that participated in an Arrowhead accelerator program. As much as $25,000 in pre-paid credits to Amazon Web Services and another $120,000 worth of credits to IBM Cloud, which can be used to manage information technology.
Current cohort participants include Mexico-based biotech company SAVEFRUIT, which offers a product to extend the life of fruit, and Foo Empresas, offering a point-of-sale platform for restaurants.
New Mexico State University previously announced that its college of business planned to promote business expansion and development in the border region with the Center for Border Economic Development, spurred by economics professor Christopher Erickson. Building economic development in Doña Ana, Luna and Hidalgo counties sat as the focus of the effort, Business First reported. The new effort aims to connect entrepreneurs in Mexico with those in the U.S.
“The Borderplex Region holds a tremendous opportunity for binational collaboration, and launching successful startups is a key activity to promote economic development,” said NMSU foster innovation exchange director Carlos Murguia in a statement. “We are excited to offer this bilingual, binational virtual accelerator for technology startups in the region."
