Commentary: In the last month, my team attended two major trade shows in Juarez, Mexico. The Juarez Border Market Tech, in its inaugural version, was held on September 20 and 21. It featured high-tech companies, entrepreneurs, and conference presenters specializing in various high-tech and cyberspace fields. The Expo MRO show, now in its eighth year, has grown from a handful of companies to more than 230 exhibitors and thousands of attendees. Both shows were held in the Cuatro Siglos convention center in northeast Juarez.
I love going to trade shows in Mexico to see trends in industry, new companies trying to break into the border region, familiar companies that I have dealt with in the past, and friends whom I only get to interact with sporadically. However, these shows also get me energized by the youthful talent that is on display, and why it is critical that we harness this element for the advancement of the U.S. and Mexican economies.
At both shows, I saw technology being applied to industry that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago. The “Industrial Internet of Things” is a term that is applied to value-added processes and manufacturing. It is characterized by the interconnectedness of systems throughout the manufacturing process, and the use of sensors and the Cloud to capture information for continuous analysis and improvement. The scope of how manufacturing is becoming high-tech and automated reminds me of science fiction and James Bond movies of the sixties that predicted the future.
At the Juarez Border Market Tech, I stopped by a booth of what looked to be teenagers who have written the code for and created action video games. They took great pride in demonstrating their games and explaining the process in which they were developed. Their immediate challenge was finding capital to commercialize their products. We discussed startups, venture capital, and making contacts in competitive industries. As I left their booth, I felt embarrassed that at their age, my focus was on chasing girls and playing guitar.
At the Expo MRO, I was introduced to a young man under 30, who had constructed a scale model of a robot that he had designed for the construction industry. This robot had strange omni-directional wheels that moved the body, and a long boom arm onto which various attachments could be mounted. The young man explained to me that the full-size robot could be programmed to do construction tasks such as constructing rock walls, laying foundations, and building the actual walls for houses. This was enlightening because I realized how this technology could greatly assist developers in areas where labor is scarce or unstable. It also was frightening because this type of technology could actually replace a lot of construction labor.
I also stopped by the booth of my friend, who manufactures 3-D printing machines. I have visited his production plant in Juarez and he has demonstrated to me how these machines can produce everything from earrings to plastic industrial components. The machines that he is producing used to sell for $30,000 just a few years ago. Now, he is developing units that can be bought by anybody for $3,000.
He wowed me with stories of the future clothing industry in which a person’s measurements can be inserted into a 3-D printer that can produce everything from pants to shoes. Imagine the future. You go shopping at a mall and stop at a shoe shop to purchase shoes customized for every nuance of your feet. Your measurements are taken, fed into the machine, and you go get something to eat. In an hour, you return to find that the 3-D printer has quickly made your shoes exactly to your specifications. The same technology can be used to customize all types of clothing. This has the power to change retail and the online industry.
Every day that I returned home from both shows it occurred to me how much talent, especially young talent, exists in Mexico. This talent is hungry to partner with U.S. entrepreneurs and companies needing them. Rather than discouraging this talent from coming to the U.S., we should be harnessing it to make our North American region more competitive against the rest of the world. U.S. colleges and universities should actively be recruiting these young geniuses and entrepreneurs and making their ingenuity create the industries and jobs of the future which do not yet exist. I am not advocating that this talent supplants our talent in the U.S., but rather to supplement it. As our population ages, the youthful energy and creativity demonstrated at these trade shows by the young Mexicans can be a vital component in spurring creativity in the U.S.
Now that the NAFTA renegotiations are done, there now exists the need to fix our immigration system so that we can recruit and retain talent not only from Mexico, but the rest of the world. Our economic greatness throughout the years has been based partly on attracting talent from the rest of the world. We need to ensure that this is part of our strategy going forward.
Jerry Pacheco is Executive Director of the International Business Accelerator, a non-profit trade counseling program of the New Mexico Small Business Development Centers Network, and the President/CEO of the Border Industrial Association. He can be reached at 575-589-2200 or jerry@nmiba.com