From left to right: María Chicuen, Stanford University student; Fabián Ruiz of NinjaCuba; Eddy Pérez of Salesforce; John McIntire, chairman of the Cuba Emprende Foundation; Tuan Caraballo, Stanford student; Dr Noé Lozano, Associate Dean of Student Affairs; Janse Lazo of Mikma and Victor Hernández Moratón of NinjaCuba. Cortesía
By Nora Gámez Torres, [email protected]
In Havana’s iconic Bacardí building, teams of computer programmers are working for U.S. companies with the tacit permission of the Cuban government.
Could the island become the next international hotspot for software development?
That’s not far-fetched, says John McIntire, chairman of the Cuba Emprende Foundation, which has been working with the island’s Catholic Church to train entrepreneurs and private business owners on the island.
“It’s already happening. I know of half a dozen companies, all based in Miami, that already have software development teams in Cuba and there are probably more that I don’t know about,” McIntire told el Nuevo Herald.
“I also know some big outsourcing companies, based in the United States, that are looking to establish operations” in Cuba, he added. “Until now, they have only been visiting Cuba, establishing relations and starting … relations with programers.”
I know of half a dozen companies, all based in Miami, that already have software development teams in Cuba and there are probably more that I don’t know about.
John McIntire, Cuba Emprende Foundation
Most of the U.S. companies hiring computer engineers and programmers in Cuba put them to work programming or designing applications for cell phones and internet sites, as well as more complex coding with open source software, added McIntire, pointing out that Cuba has many highly educated programmers who are currently “underemployed.”
With salaries of approximately $5 per hour — a more “competitive” rate than at other programming centers in the region — and in the same time zone as the United States, contracting Cuban programmers “looks very promising,” McIntire told a recent conference organized by the Americas Society/Council of the Americas and the Andean Development Corporation.
Formal office spaces like the Bacardí building are expensive, and therefore many teams of programmers work from their homes, in rented apartments or even from their office in government agencies and companies.
The people working in the Bacardí building probably also work for Cuban state enterprises, McIntire told el Nuevo Herald. “The government knows full well that those are independent programmers who work for foreign companies. They are allowing it, but not promoting it ,” he added.
The private production of software for export is a unique enterprise in Cuba, where the government holds a monopoly on all imports and exports and the vast majority of private businesses are limited to the tourism industry.
The Obama administration, as part of its campaign to ease sanctions on Cuba, allowed U.S. companies to hire Cuban programmers in 2015. But the Cuban government has not said whether programmers can legally work for foreign companies, leaving the issue unclear.
“You can get a personal license as an applications developer and pay taxes … but you cannot operate as a business,” said Víctor Manuel Moratón Hernández, a computer engineer who with Fabián Ruiz Estévez co-founded NinjaCuba, a web page for people offering or seeking employment in technology.
“I developed software with U.S. and French companies. They usually go to Cuba looking for programmers for mobile apps or web pages, but if you’re not part of the network of contacts, you don’t have access” to those jobs, Hernández said in an interview from Twitter headquarters in San Francisco.
You can get a personal license as an applications developer and pay taxes … but you cannot operate as a business.
Hernández is among the winners of the “10x10KCuba” contest, who participated in seminars at Stanford University and Miami Dade College and visited the headquarters of Google, Facebook, Twitter and Airbnb. The contest was sponsored by the Cuba Emprende Foundation, as well as #CubaNow and other organizations, to promote exchanges between island programmers and leading-edge U.S. companies.
Estévez said the exchanges have been “very important for relationships and knowledge, to give some direction to what we are doing, and to learn how to value what we’re doing in Cuba.”
Janse Lazo, a computer engineer and executive director of MiKma, a mobile app to advertise houses for rent on the island in national currency, said he hopes those types of exchanges continue.
“We want to start to transmit the know-how acquired here to the start ups in Cuba,” he said. “Sometimes there are good ideas, but you don’t know the business side. We want to boost the culture of entrepreneurship on the island.”
Despite the enthusiasm of Lazó and the other pioneers, one of the principal obstacles to Cuba’s rise in the world of offshore programming is the island’s limited access to the internet.
ETECSA, the government’s telecommunications monopoly, has reported that as of January, it had only 328 WiFi access points in parks, plazas and other public places. The agency also has announced plans for an experiment with home access to the internet — now unavailable to all but a few Cubans.
“It’s complicated, with the lack of access to the internet, because you have to search for information and then integrate all that coding into a remote depository,” Hernández said.
He said he often uses the limited access offered by ETECSA through its Nauta accounts on cell phones and WiFi hotspots. “It’s expensive, it’s awkward, because you’re connecting to the internet in a park, but for the time being, that’s all there is,” he said.
“The only major problem — if we assume the Cuban government will continue to allow it — is the infrastructure, the connectivity,” McIntire said. “The government should allow either foreign investments or offices” for teams doing that type of work.
“The talent is there,” said Ric Herrero, director of Cuba Now, one of the organizers of the 10x10KCuba contest. Several accelerator programs that participated in the contest “highlighted the quality of the entrepreneurs that we selected.”
“The principal obstacle now is the current administration and mood in the United States, which offer fewer incentives for taking risks,” Herrero said.
Your Editor Warns: Much better and easier if you are bilingual
