Around 300 people, including locals from Barcelona and Catalans from other areas, have gained access to the most innovative region in the world, better known as Silicon Valley.
According to data from Acció, the agency for business competitiveness of the Generalitat de Catalunya, among these 300 people there are entrepreneurs, employees, investors and technology managers, who have managed to fulfill the American dream right in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The innovation director of Acció’s Silicon Valley office, Marc Bonavia, said that Acció opened its doors in the 1980s in this area, with the aim of facilitating Catalan investment in this territory.
According to Acció, these 300 people are from Catalonia and have managed to place themselves in the mecca of technology enthusiasts in any of the above-mentioned profiles.
Silicon Valley: where business and technology are the only things on the agenda
It is a region of California covering nine counties in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is there that the world’s greatest technological advances of the last few decades have grown.
In fact, major companies such as Google, Netflix, Apple, Meta, Uber, among other startups have been born in this territory that historically has been linked to university and military innovation.
For this reason, being part of this community is a privilege that is within the reach of very few.
To begin with, the level of demand from multinationals, as well as from investors who promote emerging companies, is very high.
In addition, the high cost of housing makes access to this area a real dream. And now it is even more so, considering that the technology industry is in the midst of an unprecedented wave of job cuts after pandemic growth.
Catalonia present
But even in spite of this environment, there are some exceptions of people in Catalonia who have managed to live and work there.
How did they achieve this? The path to the top of the technology industry begins through arduous selection processes, either for professionals who want to become employees of these technology companies, or for entrepreneurs looking to launch their startup through prestigious accelerators (500 Startups, Y Combinator, etc.).
In other cases, different professionals seek to enter through universities (Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, Berkeley).
There are other professionals who decide to go for luck and come with their savings to venture and make their way.
It is an environment where people are measured by their milestones and not so much by their titles. No time is wasted there, the presentations are very brief. It is an open and accessible society, willing to collaborate by supporting people and ideas that seek to have a great impact on the world.
