Nuestra Venezuela en el 2013

Venezolanos, compatriotas, amigos... todos padecemos de la energía colectiva del 11 de abril del 2003; padecemos de la unidad nacionalista que nos unió y dio la fuerza de vencer al régimen Chavista que giraba nuestra nación en un rumbo equivocado.

10 años después, una decada entera, podemos reflexionar y ver que ya es hora. Muchos de nosotros nos hemos ido del país, hemos perdido esperanzas y como oposición no tenemos el mismo poder colectivo de años atrás.

Tenemos en nuestras manos el nombre de un candidato que fue elegido en las primarias abiertas por aquellos más valientes en nuestro pueblo, quienes decidieron que Henrique Capriles Radonski, con 1.806.860 votos, nos representará en las próximas elecciones electorales.

David Akinin y Henrique Capriles Radonski

University of Chicago, Harper Library

Mi escrito es para hacer un llamado a nuestro pueblo, y en especial a los líderes que se presentaron junto a Capriles Radonski. Este es un llamado por la unión y por el futuro de nestra Venezuela. Este es un último llamado para que nos despertemos y veamos un nuevo día- un día que alumbrado por los rayos de un nuevo sol, hará a Venezuela florecer una vez más.

Pablo Pérez Álvarez, María Corina Machado, Diego Arria, Pablo Medina: únanse! júntense! súmense!

Como un solo pueblo, salgamos a la calle desde hoy hasta el día de las elecciones a convencer a todo aquel que cree que su voto no cuenta, que esta vez es la que cuenta.

Desde Libya hasta Egipto, hemos visto pueblos a admirar, poblaciones enteras, que a pesar de problemas que aún estén enfrentando, han sabido salir a la calle y mostrarle al mundo que ellos son los dueños de su país!

Por una Venezuela mejor, por nuestra Venezuela en el 2013!

Stop paying for international roaming!

In the past few months I've been building a start up, Rallytel Corp, with Sam Hershberg and Ivan Warman. After having closed some key accounts, and developed the product fully, it's time I let you get a sneak peak.

Our product, the FROAM SIM, allows you to stop roaming, hence the name of FROAM- Free ROAMing.

I want to tell you more, but we're awaiting our new website launch: www.froam.com

In the meantime... do you want to get the solution? Fill out this survey, and we'll contact you ASAP

The most watched videos on Youtube!

When we watch a video on Youtube, we always attribute value to it, in part, by how many people have watched it. So today, I asked myself... What are the top watched videos on Youtube.

Here's what I found (and yes, some have been watched double the amount of America's population)...

Justin Bieber - Baby ft. Ludacris

671,801,357 views

Jennifer Lopez - On The Floor ft. Pitbull445,118,543 views

Lady Gaga - Bad Romance432,510,660 views
Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)427,849,363 views
Eminem - Love The Way You Lie ft. Rihanna411,342,056 views
Charlie bit my finger - again !394,923,519 views

Link to see it for yourself:

http://www.youtube.com/charts/videos_views?t=a

A post in Italian to restart my engines...

I haven't written in a while. I was busy throughout the summer, working at Credit Suisse in Debt Capital Markets for Latin America, and haven't written since.

The summer experience was outstanding, the knowledge acquired was growing, and in retrospect how I see things now is very refreshing. In the midst of the global debt crisis, I got to work at one of the top banks and be exposed to the most critical problems our world was facing. I learned first hand from some of the most capable individuals I've ever worked with, and I got a good taste of NYC. In fact, these are all topics for another post!

Today, or oggi as one would say in Italian, I want to share a thought in that new language- one I've been learning for the past two years. Italian is my fifth language, and surprisingly the one I've been using the most in random occasions when I travel. If there's one thing I could convince any one of you to pursue, it would be the learning of new languages.

Avete mai pensato?

Avete mai pensato a quanto diverso sarebbe il mondo se tutti gli imprenditori avessero un impatto sociale positivo? Viviamo in un mondo con molti problemi. Ogni giorno nascono più persone, e il motivo per cui gli altri muoiono anche aumenta. I ricchi diventano più ricchi, e i poveri continuano a essere poveri.

Voglio cambiare il mondo in cui viviamo. Voglio cambiare il corso della civiltà. Voglio che le imprese facciano bene. Voglio vedere l'imprenditorialità sociale. Voglio che la gente voglia quello che voglio, e anche di più.

E’ un cambiamento che non accadrà da solo. Abbiamo bisogno di un cambiamento di mentalità. La gente deve "lasciarsi andare". I politici devono riconfigurare i loro circuiti. Il popolo, Noi, dobbiamo iniziare a diffondere la parola.

RISE-Pak in the news!

The recent conference and international competition we organized at the University of Chicago, Road to Innovative Social Entrepreneurship - Pakistan (www.rise-pak.com), just got some exposure in 5 or 6 Pakistani newspapers, which other than being gratifying recognition of our work, is a great furthering of the conversation we started both about humanitarian work in Pakistan and Social Entrepreneurship by the global community.

Here is the article by Ethan Casey in Dawn:
http://www.dawn.com/2011/06/07/rising-to-the-challenge.html

Crunching the numbers: How many people have ever lived?

Adapted from an excerpt by Jonathan Good

What percentage of people who have ever lived are alive today? We know that sometime this year the world population will tick past 7 billion [1]. We know that there are a whole billion more of us than there were in 1999, as if a new China has appeared out of nowhere. The UN forecasts that the world population is expected to rise further, and further, to a whopping 10.1 billion in 2100 [2]. But what about the past? How many humans have walked on this beautiful planet of ours? And what fraction of people who have ever lived are alive today?

The evolution of humanity is a story of humble beginnings. Humans evolved on the plains of Africa an amazing 200,000 years ago [3] but the population for most of human history has been very, very small (for a flavor of the ‘early years’ see Werner Hertzog’s new movie [4]). Estimates suggest that it took 190,000 years for the population to reach 4 million (in a modern context that’s the number of people who ride the NYC subway each morning!). It wasn’t until the dawn of the industrial era in 1800 that our global population hit a seventh of what it is now, inching towards 1 billion. It’s rocketed ever since:

So what happened? Why did the world’s population start growing so quickly, so suddenly?

The world population is driven not only by more people having more children, but also the fact that we’re living longer. In fact, despite the fact that birth rates have been falling in recent decades, the population has continued to rise as those already on the planet lead longer, healthier lives, thanks to modern medicine and improved nutrition introduced in the centuries following 1800. World population growth is essentially birth rate minus death rate - thus, as life expectancy rises, death rates decrease, and the population will continue to rise.

So back to our original question. To estimate the number of people who have ever lived, we examined the average life span throughout human history in conjunction with world population levels. Until very recently life expectancy at birth hovered between 20 and 35 years, but in the past century it has risen to 67 years (it is highest in Monaco, at about 89 years, and lowest in Angola, where people live on average to be just 39 years old) [6].

All this means that in the 200,000 years since Homo Sapiens took her first steps across the African plains, just 57 billion people have ever lived. Astonishingly that means over 12% of all the people ever born are walking the planet at this very moment. Or to put it another way: one in eight people who have ever been born are alive today.

Footnotes

1. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/14/population-explosion-seven-billion
2. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/04/world/04population.html
3. Smithsonian [http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-evolution-timeline-interactive]
4. For an amazing 3D experience of this check out the new Werner Hertzog movie "Cave of Forgotten Dreams"
5. We use the UN Department of Social and Economic Affairs numbers where available, otherwise from McEvedy & Jones (1978). For a full set of world population estimates see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population_estimates
6. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2102rank.html
7. Data from 1950 on from Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat, 2007. Earlier data is sourced from wikipedia and “Medics, monarchs and mortality, 1600-1800: Origins of the knowledge-driven health transition in Europe” by S. Ryan Johansson. Neolithic assumption is that one quarter of humans lived to 40, one quarter to 20 and one half died as infants.

14th World Business Dialogue in Cologne, Germany

I had the honor of being invited to attend, as a Venezuelan and University of Chicago representative, the 14th World Business Dialogue which took place on March of 2011 in Cologne, Germany.

Along with Pedro Sanchez de Lozada and Guimar Vaca Sittic, close friends and usual partners in trips, I was exposed to innovative ideas, complex issues, dynamic personalities and emerging markets from all over the world. We were passionate about the programming because it kept us motivated to dialogue about and understand complexity.

With Keynote Speaker and Joseph Ajao

The Forum dealt with complexity as its main topic, yet it touched upon all fields, regions and issues.

Speaking with 2nd Monzambique President at Go Africa! Panel

Watch video of question at:

http://www.vimeo.com/22737635

Last question of panel: 1:44:30

Exciting was not the conference on its own, but the diversity of its attendees, the excitement of a new city and its culture, and the development of our careers from that point-on.

Rihards Garacs, Marcello Schermer and David Akinin

At the Dialogue, I made lasting friendships, promoted www.rise-pak.com, met Ricardo Amador with whom I later won Third Place at the Loyola Business Case Competition pitching an idea about housing in Rio de Janeiro based on recycled paper, and culminated with a memorable road trip.

Pedro Sanchez de Lozada, David Akinin, Guimar Vaca Sittic

(View of Cologne)

Santiago Lizaso, Pedro Sanchez de Lozada and I rented a car and drove through Belgium, Netherlands and Germany for the following week, experiencing everything from Moules Frittes to the Berlin Wall.

In Brussels with the Road-Trip Crew

We must grasp the opportunities life puts in front of us. They shape us then, and much more later on as we reflect on our learnings, relationships, failures and achievement. L'chaim!

Paris

Paris,

Ciudad de miles de colores,
De profundos y eternos amores.
Capital mundial de la gastronomiía,
Punto G de cualquier panadería.
Tierra de exquisitos sabores,
De comidas con eternos sabores.
Reina de la arquitectura,
Coronada por su grandeza que perdura.

Counting on friends, when distance is a factor

My grandmothers, larga vida tengan, are two of my greatest inspirations and role models today. Each of their life stories and values have made of me, and of my passions, what I am today... Simi Levy de Akinin and Lucy Garzón de Benarroch; two of the most beautiful, intelligent, traditional, creative and unique women on earth.

Today, March 3rd is Simi's birthday. Mi Abuela, with whom I often talk, lives in Venezuela, away from most of the family (the majority of which resides in Miami, Florida). In less than a few hours, I managed to get two of my best friends in Venezuela, Moises Benzaquen and Kevin Hassan, to go buy some of the most beautiful flowers they could find, and personally deliver them to her in celebration of her 88th birthday! They did it, and in style. It's incredible, how despite distance and time past, our friendship was enough of a reason for them to lighten my grandmother's day...

I don't know many people who have the luck to have grandmothers like mine, but much less friends like them, who selflessly did not only an amazing kavod to our friendship, but a mitzvah in honoring my grandmother.

Recognizing that my life flipped 180 degrees after moving to America in 2003, not only did I gain a different and dependent perspective of family ties and unity, but I matured in a way that I wish I would have done in earlier years.

I sought to learn more about my origins, my ancestors- their traditions, careers, lifestyles, values... My grandfather, David Akinin Serfaty, had passed away a few months after my barmitzvah, a little over a month before we moved to the States. The amount of questions I would have asked him, conversations I dream of having years after his passing, saddened me, and made me realize how lucky others are who have the opportunity to, at my age, enjoy first-hand the memories and sage of their grandfathers. My other grandfather, Abraham Benarroch Bentata, with whom I had the opportunity to share a lot more, passed away in the summer of 2008, right before I moved away to Chicago in pursuit of a college education. Nevertheless, I still dream and have thirst for time, time lost and past, to learn more and share with him...

I don't know if I'm doing a good job, but I seek to learn and stay connected with my grandmothers every day... every day more. There's so much I want to know and share; I fear I'll have the same feeling of "I should have asked more" one day.

Economia 101: Circulación del Dinero

Un amigo compartió conmigo esta historia, y la quiero hacer llegar a todos ustedes, para dar una perspectiva sobre como la crisis económica se soluciona.

Es agosto, en una pequeña ciudad de la costa, en plena temporada; cae una lluvia torrencial y hace varios días que la ciudad parece desierta.

Hace rato que la crisis viene azotando este lugar, todos tienen deudas y viven a base de créditos.

Por fortuna, llega un ruso mafioso forrado de guita y entra en el único pequeño hotel del lugar. Pide una habitación. Pone un billete de 100 dólares en la mesa de la recepcionista y se va a ver las habitaciones.

El jefe del hotel agarra el billete y sale corriendo a pagar sus deudas con el carnicero.

Éste toma el billete y corre a pagar su deuda con el criador de cerdos.

A su turno éste sale corriendo para pagar lo que le debe al molino proveedor de alimentos para animales.

El dueño del molino toma el billete al vuelo y corre a liquidar su deuda con María, la prostituta a la que hace tiempo que no le paga. En tiempos de crisis, hasta ella ofrece servicios a crédito.

La prostituta con el billete en mano sale para el pequeño hotel donde había traído a sus clientes las últimas veces y que todavía no había pagado y le entrega el billete al dueño del hotel.

En este momento baja el ruso, que acaba de echar un vistazo a las habitaciones, dice que no le convence ninguna, toma el billete y se va.

Nadie ha ganado un centavo, pero ahora toda la ciudad vive sin deudas y mira el futuro con confianza!

MORALEJA: ¡¡¡SI EL DINERO CIRCULA SE ACABA LA CRISIS!!!