PHARR, Texas - Linda Ufland Romo, director of entrepreneurship, innovation, and commercialization at UT-Rio Grande Valley, says she and her team were proud to be part of the Mujer Emprendedora program.
The program was hosted by the Mexican Consulate’s Office in Brownsville at the eBridge Center for Business & Commercialization.
“We had the privilege of working with the Consulate of Mexico in Brownsville as they hosted a program called Mujer Emprendedora. It is a program facilitated by the Consulate, where they recruit women entrepreneurs mostly from across the border but also in the United States, but that are, of course, of Mexican nationality,” Ufland Romo told the Rio Grande Guardian.
"And the idea is to support the women to achieve some of their entrepreneurial dreams.”
The women selected went through a three-month process where they engaged in different entrepreneurial sessions and mentoring classes. Ufland Romo’s department provided some of the resources for these sessions.
“So, yesterday, we had a great event that the Consulate hosted in our eBridge facility in Brownsville, where the women graduated after a long journey of entrepreneurial development. And it was really something amazing to see,” Ufland Romo said.
“We offered our facility for them to showcase their products and services. So, it was a little expo that we had there with all these amazing women, and they were able to showcase some of their products and services.”
In addition, Ufland Romo said, a pitch competition was held where three winners were selected.
“They received a lot of support from the Brownsville Community Improvement Corporation, BCIC, and they also received some sponsorships from different resources that support the Mexican Consulate. So, it was a great event. It was the really a testimony to the work that we do at eBridge and the work that we do in our community to support our entrepreneurs.”
Asked what feedback was received from the entrepreneurs, Ufland Romo said:
“They were very excited. Some of them were in tears, to be honest, just because they don't get these opportunities. They don't get a chance to really be selected, to go through this type of programming. There’s this stigma that sometimes all programming is only for certain types of businesses. And these businesses were… a lot of them were started at home, they were food related, they were retail related.”
Ufland Romo said that witnessing the effort the women put into their endeavors was inspiring.
“Their innovation, their drive, their passion, is really contagious, and it just makes you want to work harder at what we do to provide these resources. All the credit goes to the Mexican Consulate in Brownsville. They really did an amazing work in bringing these women together, in bringing all these resources together. Our role was hosting, and our role was to support them.”
UTRGV’s small business development center was also of assistance in helping support the entrepreneurial ecosystem, Ufland Romo explained.
“It was really… they were very excited. The winners were in tears, you know, they just don’t get these opportunities, and for us to be able to to provide… with the Consulate… to be able to bring this together and have us support them, it was a privilege.”
Asked what it is like to work with the Mexican Consulate’s Office, Ufland Romo said:
“For us, it's great. It's a gateway for us to really engage our international community. They are part of our economy. They're part of our DNA. You know, we have to look to the south to be able to have that support and to be able to get that engagement with them that provides economic development in our region as well.
“For me, representing UTRGV, it's a way of us giving back. I mean, we are a university that engages the Americas as well. So why not be able to work with consulates and work with international organizations where we can provide our programs and basically deliver our mission above and beyond our borders.”
Editor’s Note: The Rio Grande Guardian recently secured an in-depth interview with Linda Ufland Romo at the Pharr One Center. In the interview, Ufland Romo discussed the Mujer Emprendedora program, the Café Con Texas exhibition in Monterrey, and a trip to the Rio Grande Valley by small business owners from southern Mexico that was organized by the McAllen chapter of Asociacion de Empresarios Mexicanos and COMCE Sur. Here is a video recording of the interview:
