Colombia’s First International Telework Fair went off as scheduled on 26 July 2012. Before it started I was interviewed by Rafael Orduz Medina, the Executive Director of Colombia Digital. Here’s the video:

Colombia Digital is the sponsor of the fair together with the Ministry of Information Technologies and Communications of Colombia. The opening ceremonies included presentations by Diego Molano Vega, the Minister of Information Technologies and Communication; Rafael Pardo Rueda, the Minister of Labor of Colombia; Carlos Tomada, the Minister of Labor of Argentina; Samuel Moreno Rojas, the Mayor of Bogotá; and Colombian Senator Claudia Wilches. Topping off these statements was the signing of a pact among these government agencies and a number of Colombian business organizations (including Cisco and Microsoft delegates) to accelerate the adoption of telework in the country.

I must say that Bogotá traffic provides a powerful incentive for teleworking. Laila and I were driven from our hotel (bh Parque 93) to the conference venue on the evening of July 25th, starting at 6:30 PM. We arrived to check out the technical provisions for my presentation at 7:25 PM, lungs full of smoky diesel exhaust. The good news is that it only took us just under half an hour to return to the hotel after the rush hour(s). Still, according to my formula for quickly estimating the effects of the commute on one’s life (take the average one-way commute time in minutes, divide by two) that commute would lop off 21 waking days of our lives were it to be done routinely. Not to mention the stress impacts. Still, an Indonesian friend of ours maintains the Jakarta is even worse. Hard to imagine. In any case Bogotá certainly has one of the main telework incentives aced.

Another crucial factor in the adoption of telework is the information infrastructure, particularly Internet accessibility. I wasn’t able to test this out personally—our hotel was well equipped with WiFi—but ‘net access was one of the points widely discussed at the conference. Certainly most or all of the larger businesses and government organizations in Bogotá are well-equipped with IT. However, several Colombians we spoke with claimed that Internet access, at least in their homes, was still a work in progress. Hopefully the emphasis by the Minister of IT on increasing such access will prove fruitful in the near future.

Colombia enacted a Telework Law in 2008 that guarantees that teleworkers are treated no differently, in terms of pay, taxation and benefits, than traditional workers. This law puts Colombia ahead of the United States in that respect where similar actions are regularly blocked or ignored by Congress.

The central crucial factor in the success of telework is the workers themselves. Certainly all the people with whom we came into contact during this visit were well-educated and enthusiastic about telework. (Well, one reporter still preferred to brave the traffic and continue the commute, complaining that the bandwidth available at home was insufficient.) The fact that the conference was standing room only during the opening sessions also point to a high level of interest.

The future of telework in Colombia is promising indeed.