Exploring Safety and Productivity in Transportation: Pedro Garcia's Interview on Conexion Empresarial

In an exclusive conversation with Alfredo Campusano, host of the podcast Conexion Empresarial, Pedro Garcia Gourdin, founder and CEO of MIGTRA, shared his experience as an entrepreneur, as well as how artificial intelligence can revolutionize the transportation sector. Join us to discover the keys to a safer and more efficient future on Chilean roads.

Alfredo: Today I am going to talk with Pedro Garcia, he is the founder and general manager of MIGTRA. We are going to learn how the application of different technologies like Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence can be applied to different economic activities, improving productivity and also safety. Today we will learn what happens with these technologies when applied to everything related to transportation systems and talk about such interesting topics as the world of entrepreneurship. Hey, by the way, a question about that, how long ago did you start your business? At what age, more or less?

Pedro: I started quite late, I am 54 years old and it was around 42 when I said "this is where my life is going" and I started preparing for it.

Alfredo: What was happening in your life that made you have this click?

Pedro: The truth is I always thought I wanted to start a business, but I was looking for the right moment and there are always excuses not to do it. I was very comfortable in a very good job, I had professional development that was very secure. And I decided it was the moment to leave that comfort, that comfort was affecting me, holding me back, and I decided to take the leap. You feel very comfortable and keep postponing your dreams, it is not a good idea.

I also have a family and children and I saw myself with the uncertainty of anyone who is about to take this leap, what am I going to do. I had quite a bit of savings, I was always very conservative with my expenses, so I said "well, I can do it" and I jumped in, with very little capital and mainly the money I had was to pay for the children's school and to live, but to invest in the business, I think we invested very little.

We mainly invested our work, our ideas, our abilities. And that is what has allowed us to get to where we are.

Alfredo: There are two things from what you mention Pedro. One, that there is no age to start a business. I think that is very interesting to highlight, because many times one of the excuses we have is precisely age. "No, I am too old, nothing will happen." And the other interesting thing you mentioned: you were foresighted, because you said "okay, I am going to take on my dream, but I cannot be irresponsible, I have a family, I have responsibilities, you had a cushion that allowed you to sleep peacefully for a while. How long did you project that cushion would let you be at ease?"

Pedro: I said "I need about two years" but it was quite more. We started with the idea in 2012, but our idea solved a problem that we still did not have very clear, but basically (and here I introduce you a bit to what we do) we help transportation systems be more productive and avoid accidents.

And of course, we knew that in the transportation industry they always complain about poor profitability and accidents where work vehicles are involved account for 354 lives on average since 2007 onward. And last year there were 251 or 252 lives, meaning we are very close to the average, it is not that this number is going down. So, our thing was "there is an opportunity to help companies' profitability and to help fewer people die, fewer accidents."

With that we said "well, let's start looking at what exists and what can be done." And we started developing some concepts that would allow us to identify and quantify the risk of accidents due to certain causes, which were the main ones: speed, driving fatigue, distracted driving and microsleep and we started there. That was our focus...

Continue watching the interview on YouTube