On 2017, AGEXPORT’s Competitiveness Department developed a project to determine the required ecosystem to promote export-oriented investments outside Guatemala City. The project intended to help municipalities develop the required capabilities to attract investments. After two years, the municipality of Salcajá in Quetzaltenango became the first one to fulfill the necessary conditions to attract investments and offer high-skilled employment opportunities for its people and stop the current immigration trend.
Today, we can see the vision of this municipality on how to stop the immigration trend and take the required decisions to help businesses succeed and offer employment opportunities in their territory, which will allow to achieve higher sustainable development. Our tech company SIGEL is the first to take the leap and invest in Salcajá, which will also help this territory to become a Smart City 2.0; said Mr. Devadit Barahona, president of AGEXPORT’s Software Development Commission.
As part of the joint efforts between the municipal authorities and the company, the Salcajá Mayor, Mr. Miguel Ovalle, signed an agreement with the company SIGEL (member of AGEXPORT’s Software Development Commission) to establish the first “Developer Job Academy” in Guatemala and offer training on the different skills needed for the IT industry. This is part of a strategic initiative called Guatemala IN 5.0.
Guatemala IN 5.0 is an initiative started by SIGEL that seeks to create 500,000 new job opportunities in Guatemala in the IT industry during the upcoming 30 years, specially around rural areas where the tech industry commonly does not reach. With this, we can surely contribute to stop immigration and expand our industry nationwide. Our project is based in offering training, so that the country can offer enough talent pool with the required skills to compete with countries like India; said Mr. Miguel Angel Fernandez, SIGEL Guatemala’s CEO.
The “Developer Job Training” program expects to start with 40 people, including professionals, university students, high school students and young people in the streets.
The program is structured on 6-month cycles, where a person can opt to up-to 3 cycles, during which he or she will seek to be hired as a developer at SIGEL’s Software Factory in Salcajá.
Attract investments and offer employment opportunities in Salcajá is one of our top priorities as municipal authorities. We are sure that this first strategic alliance we signed will be the key to motivate more companies to settle in our municipality and transform Salcajá into the first Smart City; said Mr. Miguel Ovalle, Mayor of Salcajá.
During the two years since the start of the project, the authorities of Sacajá took several actions to prepare the municipality to host companies, including recruitment events and pre-screen possible candidates for the company, improvements on the broadband infrastructure, among other actions to help national and international companies to locate in Salcajá.
When you see the will of the public authorities and good decisions being taken, exporting companies can easily help to create job opportunities in all territories of the country. The actions of SIGEL and the Salcajá Municipality put in display many of the actions included on our proposal “Returning to a Job Creation Pathway”, which seeks to generate 981,000 jobs in the upcoming four years. We call more municipal authorities to reach out to us and join hands to bring social and economic development to their communities; said Mr. Barahona.
Apart from bringing employment opportunities to Salcajá, SIGEL will also support local artisans and SMEs to experience a digital transformation with a special e-commerce platform where artisans will have the opportunity to sell their products worldwide. SIGEL will also offer special training on the usage of this platform.
