The Week in Tech: Google Looking for Mexico Director

After almost three years leading the tech giant’s operations in Mexico, Google Mexico Director María Teresa Arnal has decided to step down to lead the Latin American division of Stripe. Now, Google has declared it is already looking for her replacement. Arnal previously worked as Twitter Mexico Director and as Mexico CEO of the J Walter Thompson agency. 

Google thanked Arnal for her leadership and for her contribution to Mexico’s digital ecosystem, along with her efforts to reduce the gender gap both in the Mexican business sector and in the international tech sector.

The company announced that the position and its requirements will be posted in the coming days on the Google Careers platform, with an announcement to be made soon regarding the result of this hiring process and the name of Arnal’s successor. 

Ready for more? Here’s the Week in Tech!

Insurance Tech Makes Largest Addition to Fintech Ecosystem: Finnovating

According to global innovation strategy platform Finnovating and its Mexico Fintech Map, of the 36 fintech startups entering the ecosystem in the last few months, 16 are “Insurtech” startups, representing the largest contribution to this subsector’s growth.   

These 36 firms added to the map’s total of 280 Mexican fintech startups, over 140 of these focused on payment and loan services. This makes Mexico the most active fintech developer in Latin America. 

Jalisco Government Launches New Startup Initiative

The state of Jalisco’s Ministry of Innovation, Science & Technology has partnered with the Autonomous University of Guadalajara (UAG) to launch the new “Startup Building” program, which seeks to further develop the statewide capacity for the commercialization of technology and the creation of scientific-technological startups.

Applications will be accepted until February 21. Projects must include a disruptive element that addresses a social issue, particularly in the agricultural or health sectors, and a scalable prototype situated on maturity levels 3, 4 or 5 of NASA’s TRL (Technology Readiness Level) scale. 

Guadalajara to House New AI Cluster

The Jalisco state government has joined forces with the Inter-American Development Bank, Tecnológico de Monterrey and various prominent tech giants such as Intel to develop an artificial intelligence hub in Guadalajara. 

This initiative will be launched with a US$2.9 million budget from national and international sources of public and private capital to cover the first three years of development, which will focus on social predictive models.

Jeff Bezos Faces Backlash During India Tour

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos spent this last week touring India and pledging to invest US$1 billion in the country’s digitalization of small businesses. However, he was interrupted by local sellers protesting what they called Amazon’s “predatory pricing policies” and Amazon-backed startup Flipkart’s alleged breaking of Indian law in its pursuit of profits.