Venezuela is losing a generation of tech talent to its humanitarian crisis

According to a new article in Scientific American, this science “brain drain” has its roots in the Chavez regime when former President Hugo Chavez fired employees of PDVSA, Venezuela’s state-owned petroleum company, after they went on strike against his radical policies. This then led to a first wave of mass migration of the country’s scientists to the US. Under his successor Nicolás Maduro things didn’t pick up for scientific research either, with funding all but evaporating. This trend also applied to universities where low salaries–as low as US$18 a month–have led to large scale walkouts in both public and private institutions in Venezuela. Although many of the earlier waves of migration left for the US. Others chose Latin American countries that were more developed and willing to take in Venezuelan professionals. More…