Over 1,200 entrepreneurs receive training in a forum on AI in business

Santo Domingo.- Popular Bank and its Impulsa Popular Forum trained over 1,200 entrepreneurs and representatives of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) on the opportunities presented by applying Artificial Intelligence (AI) functionalities in business, addressing trending topics with experts to raise the level of competitiveness and development of companies.

For this tenth edition, registration reached 2,800 people, reflecting a growing interest in the application of artificial intelligence in the business sector.

Under the title “AI-Future: for intelligent companies”, the tenth edition of the Impulsa Forum offered a wide menu of content to attendees, with four conferences, a conversation and a panel on artificial intelligence and its effects on business, examples of local application, the cybersecurity challenges it poses, the handling of advanced algorithms and legal aspects related to this new exponential technology.

A bank that supports SMEs

In his words, the executive president of Banco Popular, Mr. Christopher Paniagua, reaffirmed the bank’s commitment to the development and innovation of companies, encouraging the attending SMEs to take advantage of the forum’s content.

“Consider how you can incorporate this exponential technology into your own business models to continue advancing towards more competitive and sustainable leadership. In Popular we are by your side to support you on this path,” Mr. Paniagua stressed.

The Popular executive president took advantage of the meeting to ensure that the attending companies were also witnesses of how the financial organization’s app ecosystem, with applications such as Comerza and BIZ, helps manage the business sector and marks a milestone in its digital transformation.

Impulsa Popular SME Platform

Around 15,000 attendees have enjoyed the previous nine versions of this Impulsa Forum, which is a central component of the Impulsa Popular platform, through which the bank offers products, services and a complete strategy of content and training to support the business development of Dominican SMEs.

Over 71,500 SME customers are part of this platform, where 24% are dedicated to the service sector; 26% in the trade category; 14% to the manufacturing sector and 36% to the real estate sector, the rest of the percentage being distributed among other sectors of the economy. Of this group of SME clients, 24% are companies led by women.

In addition to the Impulsa Business Forum, the Impulsa Popular platform integrates the Franquicia Impulsa Popular, Fortalecimiento Empresarial Pyme programs and the Impulsa Popular website.

National and international AI experts

This tenth edition of the Impulsa Forum began with the presentation “Reimagine customer service”, given by Mr. Juan Martín Maglione, associate director – head of Deep GenAI of the international consulting firm Boston Consulting Group; then, Mr. Roberto Icasuriaga, director of SMEs and Native-Digital Companies of Microsoft, spoke about “The transformative power of Artificial Intelligence in the companies of the Dominican Republic”.

The activity included a conversation on innovation and equitable use of AI, moderated by Said Saillant, founder of Societas Sapiens, and José Armando Tavárez, managing partner of BDO Digital, who discussed the importance of equity in the implementation of AI. For his part, Ricardo Ramírez, director of Consulting and Analytics of VISA INC, offered the talk “The evolution of commerce through Artificial Intelligence”.

Experts Mabel Cueto, founder of IP Privacy Boutique Legal, Omar Silié, vice president of Data and Analytics of Popular, and Víctor Yomayusa, manager of the Information Security Architecture Division of Popular, explained how data protection and cybersecurity are key factors to implement AI in organizations.

The day ended with a talk by Enric Quintero, founder and CEO of Datarmony, entitled “Beyond the machine: AI and its footprint in the social fabric”, in which he analyzed the ethical and social consequences of this technological transformation.