How Dominican corporations and banks can turn innovation into a new economic export

By Jonathan Joel Mentor | @jonathanjmentor Every country has a word it uses too casually. In the Dominican Republic, that word is “innovation.” Executives invoke it at conferences, policymakers repeat it in speeches, and institutions package it into glossy programs. Yet most of what gets labeled “innovation” in this country is modernization dressed up as transformation, or incremental improvement sold as national strategy. Meanwhile, the real engines of wealth creation—intellectual property, venture-scale product development, cross-border digital services, corporate-backed R&D—remain almost entirely absent.That gap won’t be fixed by slogans, small grants, or borrowed Silicon Valley aesthetics. It will be fixed by Dominican corporations. Because in an economy where the private sector commands the capital, the infrastructure, and the influence, innovation is no longer a national aspiration. It is a corporate obligation. […]

4/14/2026 4:17:16 PM Read more