Friday, February 27 2009, 8:00am - 5:00pm
Breakfast with Vice President Santos of Colombia
The Colombian Government Trade Bureau, in collaboration with SDForum, is proud to announce ‘Outsource in Colombia’, a breakfast networking reception to learn about opportunities for IT outsourcing in Colombia and how companies can lower their costs while improving the quality of their work. This by invitation only breakfast session will feature Vice President Francisco Santos as the keynote speaker and includes: · A presentation of Colombia as a great business opportunity in IT outsourcing · An introduction to leading IT companies in Colombia, including BPO and Software Development specialists · A premium networking opportunity with industry leaders Friday, February 27th, 2009 in Palo Alto By invitation only, please email Amanda at amanda@sdforum.org for more information. Francisco Santos, Vice President of Colombia. Francisco Santos Calderón (1961) was elected Vice President of Colombia on the same national ballot as Colombian President Alvaro Uribe Vélez in May 2002. They both were re-elected for a second period in May 2006. As Vice President, Mr. Santos is the head of the Presidential Programs for Human Rights, Transparency and Fight of Corruption, Action Against Landmines and Youth. He also leads the Shared Responsibility Initiative, an international campaign to create awareness about the social an environmental damages caused by the cultivation of coca and production of cocaine in Colombia. In 1990, Mr. Santos was kidnapped by Pablo Escobar, the leader of the Medellín drug cartel. Along with ten other journalists, he was held for nearly eight months in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to extort a promise from then President César Gaviria that the Colombian Government would not extradite drug traffickers to the United States. Once released, the Vice President spent a year at Harvard University as a Nieman Fellow. In 1992, he returned to Bogotá and founded País Libre (Free Nation), an organization to assist the victims of kidnapping and their families. Through País Libre, Mr. Santos also promoted civil society resistance, protests and marches against kidnapping and terrorism, culminating in the massive 1999 march involving millions of Colombians rallying under the banner "No Más!" (No More!) Francisco Santos worked then as editor of El Tiempo, Colombia's largest daily newspaper. There he wrote a weekly column in which he often spoke out against kidnappings and massacres and called for civil society to take a more active role in finding peaceful solutions to the problems facing Colombia. In March 2000, Mr. Santos left Colombia after receiving multiple death threats by the guerilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). He moved to Madrid, Spain where he was a journalist for two years for the daily newspaper, El País. In the late 1980s, Mr. Santos taught journalism and U.S.-Latin American relations at various Colombian universities, including Universidad Central, Universidad Javeriana and Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano. Vice President Santos received the Paul Harris Medal, Rotary International's highest award. He studied journalism and Latin American studies at the University of Kansas and the University of Texas at Austin. LocationPalo Alto, CA |
