Port of Spain: Microsoft’s Vice President for Latin America, Hernan Rincon, announced a new initiative of his company called Student-to-Business, on the second day of the Fifth Summit of the Americas' Private Sector Forum. The project, he said, is the company’s way of finding students and giving them the opportunities and experience they will not normally get.

Mr. Rincon was contributing to the discussion titled, “Investment in ICT: A way out of the crisis”. He said so far some 150 companies are on board.

As he specifically dealt with the issue of the global financial crisis, the Microsoft executive said the world has changed and the time has come to accept that change, but the answer to the problem is innovation. Mr. Rincon said even though the global economic crisis has caused Microsoft to make changes, the company has not cut back on research and development.

Speaking on the same topic, Emilio Gilolmo, the Head of Public Affairs Telefónica International and President of Telefónica Chile, said the economies of Latin America and the Caribbean are much stronger, but governments must see communications technology as the way out of the economic crisis.

Mr. Gilolmo is urging public sector involvement, saying governments of Latin America and the Caribbean must ride the wave of this crisis because it is actually an opportunity.

VSOA-TT 43-2009