My Experience As a Speaker At a Seminar At Kharazmi University, Iran

On this occasion, I was invited by Kharazmi University, Iran to participate in a seminar called The Consumer Experience as an Innovative Strategy for Startupers. To fund my trip, I sent an application to ITMO University's Academic Mobility Support Office and obtained a 70% reimbursement of my expenses. You can read more about the opportunity here.

A slide from my presentation. Image courtesy of the author

This seminar allowed me to learn about the way students think about innovation, for example, in Iran they have their own applications like Snapp, which is like YandexGo.

For my presentation, I collaborated with professors from Areandina University (Prof. Edgar Mesa, Prof. Yusney Porras, Vice Chanchellor Martha Castellanos, and Chancellor José Leonardo Valencia) and JISU University (Prof. Mo Zhao), as well as Juan Sebastián Saindo, who is an innovation and digital transformation consultant. In our talk, we emphasized such topics as design thinking and storytelling for student ventures.

During the seminar, we made a comparison of startups and the environment for their development in China, Colombia, and Russia, which elicited a great response from our audience.

VK, Baidu, Taobao, WeChat and Rappi were some of the examples that I showed, specifying that in each country, all entrepreneurship must adapt to the culture and way of thinking of the people. My final comment was that at this time we should not change the people but listen to them and understand their needs.

Also, I explained the importance of the humanization of startups and the role of consumer emotions in this very changing world, because I believe that flexibility is the correct path towards innovation.

During my stay in Iran I felt very safe, and I felt very comfortable and happy since the Iranians are very respectful, friendly people. I felt that they appreciate South American culture very much and in some places I got a discount on purchases because I am Peruvian.

I would like to thank Dr. Omid Ebadati, the director of the Bureau of International Scientific Cooperation at Kharazmi University, and Dr. Ali Tahaei, a researcher at the bureau, as well as my Faculty of Technological Management and Innovation at ITMO and the university’s Academic Mobility Support Office for making my participation in the event possible and memorable.