The launching of Tijuana Innovadora 2016 Creativa brought food trucks, folkloric dancing and elected officials from both sides of the border to the city’s World Trade Center on Thursday morning for a common cause: celebrating the potential of Tijuana and the broader cross-border region.
The eight-day mega-event features filmmakers, chefs, fashion designers, video game producers, environmentalists, academics, entrepreneurs, and a few government officials. Organizers hope the wide variety of offerings will draw an audience from both sides of the border, create new initiatives and bring a positive spotlight to the city.
Attending the opening ceremony were Baja California Gov. Francisco Vega de Lamadrid, Tijuana Mayor Jorge Astiazarán, as well as San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, Chula Vista Mayor Mary Salas and Imperial Beach Mayor Serge Dedina.
Faulconer called the event “a showcase of the partnerships, the cooperation, and the opportunities within the Tijuana-San Diego mega-region… of the unlimited possibilities when you focus on building bridges through binational cooperation and collaboration.”
Faulconer is among a number of prominent San Diegans who have championed Tijuana Innovadora. In 2014, the mayor even suggested that the city might team up with Tijuana to make it a binational event, a proposal that did not materialize. At a news conference in Balboa Park last month, he called on San Diegans to attend the conference, and announced the availability of daily bus service from the park.
Tijuana Innovadora initially was conceived at a difficult time for Tijuana, when rival drug traffickers brought unprecedented violence to the city, and an economic downturn led to the loss of tens of thousands of jobs. Tourism dropped precipitously.
“Tijuana was a city that was impossible that became possible” though the conference, said José Galicot, president of Tijuana Innovadora, the non-profit group that stages the mega-conference. “Despair gave way to hope.”
In his speech, Gov. Vega said stressed the state’s strong economic indicators. The state’s unemployment rate has fallen from 5.9 percent in 2013 to 2.4 percent today. He expects the state’s growth rate this year to exceed four percent.
Despite all the opening ceremony’s upbeat talk, Tijuana is not without its issues. Homicides have been climbing back up, and business leaders are demanding stronger action from authorities. Speaking to reporters outside the event, the governor was grilled with questions about the violence, state finances, and the presence of Haitian migrants trying to cross to the United States.
The day’s keynote speaker, former Mexican foreign minister Jorge Castañeda, opened his talk with some harsh words about Mexico’s battle against drug cartels. “The war has done absolutely nothing,” said Castañeda, who plans an an independent bid for Mexico’s presidency in 2018. “What’s most serious is that we are no closer today to solving the security problem.”
Mayor Astiazarán said while “we might have problems,” the conference has served to show that “Tijuana is more than bad news.” With less than a month left in his three-year term, he waxed poetic about his city: “Tijuana is a place that has a special light, a special something, special activity, special feeling.”
Funding for Tijuana Innovadora has dropped significantly since the initial $5 million conference in 2010, which was heavily backed by Mexico’s federal government. This year’s $600,000 event — plus in-kind contributions — was staged largely through private sponsors and ticket sales, organizers said. It has been moved farther from the border to a rapidly growing area of the city closer to eastern Tijuana.
