Entrepreneurship, Economic Development and Spirituality

Estefanía Campos  | 15 de febrero de 2018  | Vistas: 94

Universidad Francisco Marroquín welcomed Andreas Widmer, who came to share his experience discovering spirituality and finding his path in entrepreneurship and economic development.

Andreas begins by sharing some details about his personal life, such as his childhood and struggles finding what he wanted to do with his life. At a certain moment he decided he wanted to be a bodyguard and was assigned to protect Pope Jean Paul II in the Vatican. Even though this didn’t mean much for him in that time, after sharing more time with the Pope he started to understand more about God and had a more clear perspective on what he wanted to do with his life.

Eventually I left the Vatican and Jean Paul II knew that I found Christ there.”

After his time in the Vatican he met his wife, who was studying in Rome, and decided to come to América to work. Little after he arrived, he got involved in several startups, the first one was the company that brought internet to the PC, later Dragon Series, a speech recognition system. He reflects on how it’s very easy to fall into the trap that you have the “golden hand” and you can become very self assured.

After a mistake selling the company to a fraudulent company, he reach again to God. He started questioning his path and love for free market and capitalism. Also reflected on the importance of freedom:

What happens to the human person if you take the freedom away? They become less of an image of God”.

Later Andreas answers a tough question: why do we do business? And no, the answer is not “to make money”. Later he shares three fundamental objectives Pope Jean Paul II told him every company should have:

• To create.
• To support
• To Reward

Andreas Widmer finally talks about the integral development of others our daily activities and the pursuit of our dreams should aim for. Finally, he talks about how the best way to help through our work is not to turn people dependent by giving them what they need, but to give them the chance to prosper. He says, being poor is a matter of being excluded of networks of productivity and exchange.

Now learn about the Popes from renaissance.