North American Nearshoring Ecosystem – iCluster (Part 1/3)

(This article is the first in a three-part series exploring the iCluster innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem.)

Trade trends within North America (NA) point to strengthening supply chains and mitigating resilience risks through nearshoring. We live in a moment of substantial regional opportunities that require guidance to regions in developing infrastructure and to companies in developing the necessary capabilities and talent. The NA region benefits under the established trade agreements in terms of proximity and time zone alignment, cultural affinity, cost savings, knowledge transfer, IP generation, skilled labor force development, regulatory alignment, logistics advantages, and better access to local markets. However, nearshoring opportunities have a limited window of time.

The iCluster innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem started a decade ago aimed to facilitate linkages among multinational stakeholders representing government, academia, and private industry through knowledge networking; and foster the sustainable growth and competitiveness of North American supply chains. The Mexico-United States Entrepreneurship and Innovation Council (MUSEIC) was founded in support of the High-Level Economic Dialogue (HLED) signed in 2013 by both countries, establishing seven subcommittees: iCluster, Access to Capital, Women Entrepreneurship, SME Infrastructure, Technology Commercialization, and Energy. The MUSEIC iCluster Subcommittee focused on five initiatives: Cluster Mapping, International Cooperation, High-impact Entrepreneurship, Women Entrepreneurship, and Digital Transformation. Projects under these initiatives were tightly linked throughout Phase 1 (2013-2014), Phase 2 (2015-2016), and Phase 3 (2017-2018), sharing regional and sectoral strategies supported by globally accepted methodologies and trusted socio-economic datasets. Knowledge of domain-specific interaction with key stakeholders required developing AI models and Open Knowledge Networks (OKN) for each iCluster initiative.

The iCluster data mapping tri-national work convened the Ministry of Economy and INEGI in Mexico, the Departments of Commerce and State and the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness (ISC) of the Harvard Business School in the United States, and Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED) in Canada. The outstanding outcome of this MUSEIC collaboration initiative was the US cluster map (published in June 2015), the Mexican cluster map (published in June 2016), and the Canadian cluster map (published in August 2017), offering compatible economic development tools for the NA region. The iCluster Subcommittee also proposed the Value Network Mapping framework based on a proprietary data mapping methodology created by Mexican data scientists and shared with the US and Canadian governments to guarantee NA compatibility support. This framework focused on regional specializations considering Mexico’s local socioeconomic differences with the United States and identifying the binational supply chains. The two iCluster NA data mapping frameworks were presented at international events of the Organization of American States (OAS), the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and the European Commission, and were discussed in numerous meetings with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the World Bank, federal and subnational government agencies, universities, and research centres in the United States and Mexico (Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, UT, UCSD, ITESM, UABC, UNAM, IPN, UAM, UAQ, and others). 

The US-Mexico Foundation for Science (FUMEC) is a data-oriented organization created over 30 years ago focused on supporting productive initiatives aimed at promoting a stronger entrepreneurship and innovation binational ecosystem and developing stronger NA supply chain ties in support of NAFTA (in aerospace, agroindustry, electric vehicles, semiconductors, and other industries). FUMEC has participated in the HLED since its origins, coordinating the MUSEIC Technology Commercialization Subcommittee. The board of governors of FUMEC unanimously approved taking over the iCluster continuity on Sept. 20, 2021, focusing on principles based on the new negotiations of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement in 2020 (USMCA) and the HLED in 2021. 

The iCluster phase 4 focuses on four initiatives: Data Mapping Framework Update, U-S.-Mexico Border Ecosystem, Mexico Central Corridor Ecosystem, and South-Southeast & Mexico-Central America Border Ecosystem.

The goals of iCluster are:

• Update Mexico’s national cluster map to support nearshoring (providing data at the municipal level). 
• Disseminate economic development reference frameworks and roadmaps, identifying NA supply chains through globally accepted methodologies and datasets (import/export data based on Harmonized System codes, economic activities based on NAICS, cluster definitions, economic complexity, among others).
• Identify global supply chain gaps and NA nearshoring priorities in Mexico.
• Foster regional sustainable development through productive projects and high-impact entrepreneurship focused on “smart specializations” based on existing and potential capabilities (evolving from “maquiladora” to a higher value-added model).
• Provide feedback for public policy.
• Link up national and international stakeholders through data science and AI to drive Mexico toward a competitive knowledge economy.

UMEC collaborates with clusters committed to innovation to identify and promote regional productive projects for the creation of new products, services, and value adds, backed up by competitive R&D, higher economic complexity, and diversification. This collaboration aims at filling the gaps in the supply chains through an NA-concerted nearshoring strategy. With the right tools and knowledge, innovation clusters empowered by AI have the potential to influence regional competitiveness, supporting agile responses to existing opportunities from Mexican companies that can contribute content and higher value to the NA region. 

(In collaboration with Alfredo Sánchez Alcántara, member of FUMEC’s Board of Governors)

Next in this series:
iCluster Regional Use Case – iCluster (Part 2/3)
iCluster Industry-specific Use Case – iCluster (Part 3/3)