Living outside of the big cities or big technology/financial hubs sometimes is the synonym of being left out of everything whats going on and being far away of many opportunities for your own professional development. On these places the ecosystem is vibrant with lots of events and meetups, either focused on networking or to share knowledge about a given topic.
Unfortunately for those leaving far away of these centers, even though remote working is more prevalent nowadays, we still are not able to attend and be part of these things regularly.
That is why I see with great pleasure the recent grow in this kind of activity in Funchal. Institutions like the University of Madeira, Madeira Interactive Technologies Institute, Startup Madeira and some other people, have been organizing recently several of this events and promoting an entrepreneurial mindset and a culture of innovation. This might turn the city’s ecosystem more dynamic and help exploring new and open opportunities, specially related with technology and the digital economy, in an island that is somewhat dependent on tourism.
As an example in the last few weeks, we’ve had a informal business networking event called “Afterwork” which as been happening with some regularity, we had some talks in several fields given by experts in M-ITI open to the public and we also had a workshop of “marketing for startups” given by Felipe Ávila Da Costa from Infraspeak (previously UPTEC).
Of course this should be just the staring of a long walk, but is good to see some movement in this area. Because I see much potential in other areas, that are not tied to location or raw materials, to be developed and “shipped” to the rest of the world from Madeira, we just have to change to a doing mindset and explore the existing global opportunities while living here.
And lets get real, who doesn’t prefer to work and live in a beautiful island with great weather all year round, instead of endure crazy cold winters and burning hot summers?
Also, have I already talked about the great co-working spaces we have here? Perhaps I will do it in a future post.