Some days you wake up in the morning and during your routine "webgardi" while checking out your e-mails you come across a news piece or you end up visiting a web site from a nowhere land, and you just admit to yourself, wow, this world has changed right in front of your eyes.

I discovered, quite accidentally, this web site called Start-Up Chile that is put up by the government of Chile. It invites aspiring entrepreneurs from all over the world to bootstrap their startups in Chile.

The Program page on the web site says "In 2010, the program, at that point just a pilot, brought 22 startups from 14 countries to Chile, providing them with US$40,000 of equity-free seed capital, and a temporary 1-year visa to develop their projects for six months, along with access to the most potent social and capital networks in the country."

By equity-free, they mean this Chilean government entity does not take a percentage of the start-up business. The Program page, furthers explains "Of all required criteria, it is essential that the chosen entrepreneurs work in a global mindset, believing that the route to success is via expansion not isolation."

Here is a short introduction to explain the philosophy behind this program.

I just remembered 1973 when the ex-Soviet Union football team refused to play against the Chilean national football team at the Estadio Nacional Santiago stadium claiming they wouldn't set foot in a stadium that then was believed to have held up political dissidents after the military coup led up by Augusto Pinochet in that country. It now seems to me from 1973 to present, Chile has improved enormously.

WOW! This world has changed. In many ways it is for the better, and the Start-Up Chile is a good example.

References:

1. Web site of Start-Up Chile: http://startupchile.org

2. Pinochet, The Cold War, and the Most Pathetic Match Ever Played. http://www.footandball.net/pinochet-the-cold-war-and-the-most-pathetic-match-ever-played/2288/