First of all, it´s key to state that an ecosystem is A powerful environment to make your ideas come true and grow.

What would you find when looking closely at the Great Barrier Reef in Australia❓

Surely, a variety of species, including turtles, fish, sharks, plants, corals, and many, many others.

They coexist in the same space, although they are totally different.

It’s an ecosystem in action.

As NatGeo says,

“An ecosystem is a geographic area where plants, animals, and other organisms, as well as weather and landscapes, work together to form a bubble of life.”

We have lived in this gigantic ecosystem called Planet Earth, and we interact with other species.

70,000 years ago Homo Sapiens began their evolution, and we became what we are after 3 revolutions:

• Cognitive (70,000 years ago),
• Agricultural (12,000 years ago),
• and Scientific (only 500 years ago)

Taken from Yuval Noah’s book “Sapiens, A Brief History of Humankind”

To make a long story short, Homo sapiens was the only one of the 6 hominid species to survive.

What was their main ability to do so❓

From what I understood, communication was the key.

The ability to tell stories is known as Storytelling in our words today.

If you want to read Noval’s book, I include a link in the comments.

But, back to the topic, I want to take Communication skills as the key concept to moving towards digital or technological ecosystems.

How is a technology ecosystem formed?

As has been said, communication is the basis on which we have built ecosystems since ancient times.

And in this digital era, we have tools that significantly enhance that human capacity.

The Internet, mobile telephony, and blockchain, among other current technologies, provide us with a scenario in which, in addition to telling stories, we break geographical boundaries.

In this context, let’s see as a reference 5 types of actors, among others, that interact within a technological ecosystem (information extracted from the MIT website):

• Entrepreneurs
• Universities & Academy
• Government
• Corporations
• Venture Capital & Financial

Image from MIT website, “Innovation Ecosystems for regional entrepreneurship”

Think about the interactions that take place in one of the ecosystems you know: for example, the financial services ecosystem in your country (Fintech).

Make a list of the companies you identify with the 5 types of actors in the chart above.

That list will be your entry pass to better understand how ecosystems work to generate value for the population they serve.

Relevance for moving forward tech development

One of the greatest benefits of belonging to an ecosystem or a community is having a stage to solve questions: your own, and those of other people.

The stronger the community, the greater the security of its members to grow and learn freely.

Some key aspects of digital ecosystems:

• A place to ask questions
• Community Membership
• Specialized content
• Resources to grow
• Diversity and global reach

And beyond that, the synergies that enable collaborations to connect and extend the reach of the technologies you create.

In other words, Standing on the shoulders of giants

A couple of examples

There are thousands of technology communities and ecosystems, and we will cover them in future posts and newsletters.

For now, I want to present 2 important ones, just for showing some characteristics:

• Pix payments open platform, Brazil
• Y Combinator

Pix payments in Brazil 🇧🇷

In 2020, the Central Bank of Brazil launched Pix, an instant payment system that the bank developed, manages, operates, and owns.

Its growth is the dream of every open banking initiative.

• +700 entities belong to the system (a link to the whole list in references)
• 24/7 availability
• Huge impact to serve end users
• A powerful roadmap to keep developing new services.

Recently, Pix has achieved a major milestone by matching the use of cash.

Data from the Atlantico report, 2022, an insightful report on Latin America (link in References)

Image from the “Latin America Digital Transformation Report 2022”, September 22nd, 2002, produced by Atlantico

Y Combinator 🇺🇸 🌎

Just a few sentences about this entrepreneurial ecosystem, to keep the article as short as possible.

It was founded in 2005 and has established itself as one of the strongest programs for startups.

In its portfolio, there are companies like Stripe, Airbnb, Doordash, OpenSea, Instacart, and Zapier, among many others.

Imagine the impact of this ecosystem on people who are creating their companies, and have access to funding, support, resources, and the possibility of talking to founders of successful startups.

Let´s take a look at the Y Combinator´s companies list here: https://www.ycombinator.com/topcompanies

Can you see it?

Organisms grow in the right environment 🌎

3 points to highlight:

• Communities are key to promoting growth: as we have seen open source initiatives grow significantly, and provide a unique set of tools for members to collaborate.
• Questions and co-creation consolidate ecosystems: as we mentioned before, we can find knowledge, resources, and solutions to develop our projects confidently.
• A unique attribute of humans is our ability to tell stories: if you belong to the right community, you can participate and improve your communication.

Combinatorial effect: Ecosystems + People 🚀🚀🚀

Bonus → → → Sometimes, ecosystems are key drivers for projects that promote sustainability, and this is the case for B companies. We will see them in detail in future editions

Finally, it should be noted that this article is just one possible exploration of how to connect the dots, and everyone can make their own.

My main goal is to inspire us to use this approach to discover elements that ignite our problem-solving capacity and innovative mindset.

Keep discovering combinatorial effects in our lives.

See you in the upcoming issues…

“Ecosystem”, NatGeo website: Ecosystem | National Geographic Society

Summary “Sapiens, A Brief History of Humankind”, Yuval Noah Harari, written by James Clear:Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Access to Atlantico report, “Latin America Digital Transformation 2022”

2022 Landing Page (Copy) – Atlantico

List of members, Pix payments in Brazil 🇧🇷: https://www.bcb.gov.br/content/estabilidadefinanceira/pix/ListadeparticipantesdoPix.pdf