[WORKBOOK] Run the Comisión de Innovación: learn, connect and build

TL;DR: Bring Guatemala into international knowledge, conversation and production. Make the Comisión a gold standard for innovation. Build Colmena as its execution arm. Inside: before/after changes, the annual plan and three short decision sheets.

1. Raise the standard

A Comisión de Innovación that spends its energy on titles, repeated forms and slow coordination has its first innovation project sitting right in front of it.

Why are we making the obvious difficult?

Use names. Put evidence on the table. Simplify entry. Automate routine administration. Spend the recovered time learning, connecting and building.

The target reaches further: world-class capabilities, stronger institutions, major industries, international markets and better incomes. Much of the knowledge already exists—from long-established practices to current science and engineering. Learn it, understand its conditions, apply it and improve it.

Small experiments are how we enter big territory. They do not set the ceiling.

2. First, discover what we are missing

People cannot request opportunities they have never encountered. Asking “what do you want to do?” gives a narrow answer when the menu is narrow.

Our first priority is to expand that menu: unfamiliar industries, ways of learning, production methods, ownership models, collaborators and markets. Then help people experiment and develop the capability to participate.

Exposure → learning → experiment → demonstrated capability → larger opportunity.

Do not expect a new result from people left inside the same information, incentives and procedures. Design the conditions that help them move.

The ocean and the frog applies to commissioners too. A title tells us something about a person’s training. Their reasoning and work tell us what they can contribute here.

3. Before → after

These are operating changes to pursue.

Before	After
“Ingeniero, licenciado, doctor…” takes precedence.	Names in working meetings. Relevant expertise shows up in the reasoning.
Registration becomes a maze of forms, referrals and waiting.	One clear entry point, essential information, a named reviewer and a visible response deadline.
Potential contributors wait idle for formal membership.	Offer a suitable project contribution while accreditation follows its required route.
Leadership eligibility depends on accumulated attendance in the existing system.	Open a clear route to president, vice-president and secretary based on capability, commitment and a credible work plan.
The same information is requested repeatedly.	Collect once, reuse appropriately and show what remains missing.
Meetings read reports aloud and repeat protocol.	Read updates beforehand; meet to decide, resolve blockers and accept commitments.
Minutes and follow-up depend on someone reconstructing everything.	Digital records and AI-assisted drafts; a responsible person confirms decisions and owners.
“We have always done it this way.”	What purpose does it serve? What evidence justifies the cost?
“That will never work here.”	Which condition is missing? Who can change it? What would test the objection?
Members appear mainly as institutions and credentials.	Show capabilities, interests, needs, offers, availability and actual contributions.
A calendar of separate activities.	A connected programme with people responsible for delivery.
Courses and jobs reproduce the familiar options.	Paths toward new capabilities, enterprises, research, industries and international work.
Success means attendance, certificates and photographs.	Track what people learned, built, used, changed or earned.

Required institutional steps need a clear, efficient route. Unnecessary ceremony needs retirement.

The Comisión should be the place where better ways of working become normal.

4. Colmena: the arm that makes things happen

Minions / Asociados de Innovación evolved into Colmena. The central idea remains: people who learn to organize projects and make useful work happen.

This is a top priority. Every other priority needs execution capacity.

Colmena is the proposed execution arm supporting the Comisión: recruit contributors, expand their horizons, connect needs with capabilities, form teams, organize projects and follow through. Potential Network supplies the experimental software for profiles, paths, experiments and journals. Try the Colmena software and explore its paths catalogue.

The network is people, judgment and coordination. Software helps it operate.

Project management—PM—means turning an aim into organized work: scope, people, resources, dependencies, dates, decisions and evidence. It can support education, logistics, manufacturing, research or institutional reform. Subject specialists provide the relevant depth; project leads keep the work moving.

What Colmena needs to do

1. Open possibilities. Show ambitious paths and the knowledge behind them.
2. Help people begin. Find an accessible experiment and the support it needs.
3. Build teams. Combine learners, specialists, connectors and delivery leads.
4. Move projects. Coordinate tasks, resources, decisions and follow-up.
5. Grow responsibility. Let demonstrated capability lead to harder work and greater ownership.
6. Share the learning. Make the next attempt easier for someone else.

Working principle: 50% your path · 50% our community. Develop your own possibilities while helping others advance.

An associate can begin by researching an industry or coordinating an interview. Their path can lead toward running programmes, building companies or organizing industrial development. The first task is an entry point.

Immediate priority: name a coordinator, recruit an initial team, assign real projects and review completed work. A directory alone supplies no execution.

This is the intended operating model; institutional roles, resources and responsibilities must be agreed explicitly.

5. The institutional side: what we have to work with

The official body is the Comisión Técnica Intersectorial de Innovación Productiva y Emprendimiento. Its stated mission is to coordinate interinstitutional efforts toward a culture of innovation.

Piece	Practical use
SINCYT — national science and technology system	Find institutions and capabilities relevant to the work.
SENACYT — national science and technology secretariat	Coordinate institutional participation, programmes, procedures and proposals.
CONCYT — national science and technology council	Identify the decision route for matters requiring national governance.
FONACYT — science and technology fund	Investigate eligible funding routes and their requirements.
The Comisión	Convene, investigate, propose, coordinate and organize follow-through.
Members and partners	Contribute expertise, facilities, users, contacts and delivery capacity.

My participation: Fundación-i and NoFate are my personal route for participating and contributing to the Comisión. Each member brings their own route and capabilities.

Tradition provides relationships, annual planning, meetings, records and institutional access. Put those assets to work. Redesign the friction.

Annual plan: concise project inventory

The PTA—Plan de Trabajo Anual supplies the institutional commitments. Each activity needs a useful purpose and someone to carry it.

Project	What it is for	How it advances the larger agenda
InnovAction PM / Asociados de Innovación	Develop people able to organize and deliver projects.	Its execution logic continues through Colmena; capacity that helps activate every theme.
Science clubs / STEAM	Develop scientific, technical and creative capabilities through project work.	Open paths toward research, invention, enterprise and solving consequential problems.
National multisector hackathons	Combine capabilities around real challenges.	Produce testable work and teams with a continuation route.
RIIC Fase Emprende	Help research and innovation projects address intellectual property and commercialization.	Move useful knowledge toward applications, licensing and enterprise.
Interinstitutional sector mesas	Bring relevant institutions together around a shared problem.	Resolve dependencies and prepare proposals with accepted responsibilities.
Electronic bulletin	Distribute knowledge, opportunities and progress.	Expand the menu and publish material others can use.
Podcast	Explain work, methods and consequential decisions.	Connect local audiences with practitioners and international ideas.
Institutional dissemination of CTI	Make participating institutions’ science, technology and innovation visible.	Show capabilities and access routes people can actually use.
Science, Technology and Innovation Week	Coordinate participation in SENACYT’s wider platform.	Demonstrate work, find contributors and create next steps.
National mentor network	Connect projects with relevant experience.	Help teams meet stronger technical and commercial standards.
Innovation and Productivity Observatory	Map actors, capabilities, research, needs and trends.	Supply intelligence for projects, partnerships and industry development.

The working summary lists ten activities; the source inventory adds institutional dissemination as a separate line. Detailed frequency, funding and status differences remain in the private editorial record.

Related pieces: PNI is the national innovation prize, with its own institutional process. Speakers bring outside knowledge. Mejorando el Manual can support public explanation. ASM develops project-based learning environments. These pieces should connect where they advance the work.

6. The bigger agenda: international participation and production

The standard is international: what people here can understand, discuss, build, own and exchange with the world.

Direction	Target	Work that opens the route
Education + ASM	People able to learn independently, investigate, build and lead.	Expose new possibilities; develop foundations; test capability through increasingly demanding projects.
Communication + languages	Guatemala participates in international technical, scientific and commercial conversations.	Read beyond the local circle, learn languages, engage practitioners and publish contributions.
Colmena	A growing network capable of initiating and delivering ambitious work.	Connect individual paths with teams, project leadership and real opportunities.
Postal service + logistics	Local producers can reach distant customers reliably.	Map delivery failures, compare operating models and organize improvements with the responsible institutions.
Payments + broadband + administration	Learning, collaboration and commerce work across borders.	Identify barriers, simplify routes and pursue structural changes with the actors who control them.
Economy + enterprise	More valuable production, ownership and better incomes.	Understand demand, quality, costs, distribution and how value reaches participants.
Major industries	Attract and develop substantial productive activity in Guatemala.	Work backward from operators’ requirements: talent, suppliers, infrastructure, rules, capital and market access.
Government and public systems	Institutions that help useful activity happen.	Redesign services around purpose, measurable performance and fast correction.

Illustrative industrial targets worth investigating include advanced manufacturing, electronics, medical devices, agricultural technology, software, animation, gaming and audiovisual production. They require different conditions. Pick a target, learn how it operates and build a credible route.

No occupation is exempt from improvement. Repair, farming, teaching, logistics and administration can all gain from better knowledge, tools and organization. Do not preserve low productivity as a local identity.

Better incomes require valuable work, access to demand and arrangements that let people capture that value. Measure those conditions.

7. Merge the two sides

Education, project management and Colmena apply across programmes. Science clubs can use the same principles of exposure, experimentation, responsibility and learning developed through ASM, while Colmena helps connect facilitators, mentors, resources and project leads. Club projects can then contribute questions, discoveries and future collaborators to the wider network.

Integration is a central design rule: each programme should use and strengthen the others. Share methods, people, knowledge and useful outputs; build clear routes from one opportunity to the next. For every project, ask: what can it draw from another programme, and what can it contribute back?

National aim → knowledge we need → PTA instruments → Colmena team → work → evidence → next decision.

Example: investigate an electronics and advanced-manufacturing industry programme.

• Observatorio: map operators, demand, suppliers, talent and missing conditions.
• Speakers and mentors: bring practitioners who can explain production requirements.
• Colmena: organize research, partnerships, project plans and follow-through.
• Education and clubs: develop routes into the required capabilities.
• Mesas: resolve institutional dependencies with decision-makers.
• RIIC and build challenges: develop relevant applications and technical work.
• Bulletin, podcast and Semana CTI: publish findings, show capability and recruit participation.

Illustrative programme design. First outputs could be a requirements brief, a verified partner conversation and an accepted technical test. The target remains industrial capability and investment.

The PTA becomes a set of instruments for transformation. Colmena supplies the hands.

8. Participation: the working standard

Schooling is no substitute for attitude, reasoning or contribution. Expertise matters where the work requires it.

1. Learn actively. Bring sources, questions and unfamiliar possibilities.
2. Reason clearly. Explain the mechanism and what would change your mind.
3. Experiment. Help investigate uncertainty.
4. Contribute. Make a usable offer of time, skill, resources or access.
5. Follow through. Accept realistic commitments; flag problems early.
6. Think beyond the familiar. Examine international standards and examples.
7. Disagree productively. Challenge the president and the proposal with equal freedom.
8. Document and share credit. Leave work others can continue.
9. Make interests clear. State institutional roles, commercial interests and permissions.
10. Stay inventive. Curiosity, humor and surprising approaches belong in serious work.

Use names. Earn trust through the work.

Proposed entry: one short profile → brief conversation → suitable first contribution → feedback and a next responsibility. Formal accreditation follows the applicable institutional process.

Open the route to leadership

President, vice-president and secretary should be accessible to capable people willing to do the work. Simplifying general participation while keeping leadership behind rigid attendance thresholds leaves the main barrier intact.

Attendance alone is a weak test of leadership—especially when meetings have been poorly managed from the start. Someone who can organize the work and improve the system may have little history inside it. Give them a practical route to stand for election.

Proposed reform: lighter eligibility rules, a simple nomination process, transparent selection and accountability for delivery. Assess judgment, availability, an actionable plan and demonstrated follow-through. Recognize project contributions and remote participation. Review attendance and tenure barriers; retain only requirements that serve a clear purpose.

When a strong candidate falls outside the traditional profile, identify the rule blocking them, who can amend it and the decision needed. Pursue that change. Until it is adopted, use available project leadership roles to involve them and demonstrate their contribution.

Find people who can move the Comisión forward. Make the route work. These are proposed changes to eligibility and selection, to adopt through the appropriate institutional process.

9. Three working sheets

Use these with activity leads to choose priorities, remove friction and assign work. Bring the current PTA, known constraints and sources. Record unknowns as research tasks.

A. Expand the target

What possibility are people currently missing?
What could become possible at international scale?
What knowledge or outside example must we examine?
Which conditions need to change?
What first investigation or experiment informs the route?

Sample: Electronics production → learn buyer and supplier requirements → interview operators → test a local team’s ability to meet one relevant specification.

B. Remove institutional friction

Before: what step consumes time or excludes useful people?
What purpose or requirement does it serve?
After: what simpler process serves that purpose?
What can digital tools or AI assist with?
Who approves the change, and how will we compare results?

Sample: Repeated registration requests → one reusable profile and visible review status → measure information requested, processing time and unresolved cases. Confirm the necessary accreditation requirements.

For meeting records, use AI to draft summaries, actions and reminders from authorized material. A person checks accuracy and confirms the official record.

C. Put Colmena to work

Aim / PTA connection:
Project lead / contributors / specialist support:
Next deliverable / acceptance criterion / date:
Resources / decision-maker / blocker:
Evidence / lesson / next decision:

Sample: Industry requirements brief → Colmena research lead plus an industry adviser → deliver sourced requirements and unresolved questions for review → assign the next partner conversation.

Review decisions and blockers in meetings. Track routine updates digitally. Automate repeated work. Keep human responsibility visible.

Two-minute start: name one ambitious direction, one procedure that obstructs it and one person who could help Colmena move it.

Sources and scope

Based on the 2026 PTA, Commission records and the development of Asociados into Colmena clarified by its founder. This workbook proposes an operating direction; formal changes require the relevant institutional decisions.

• Commission information and annual plans
• Published 2026 PTA
• Colmena experimental software
• Colmena paths catalogue

Contact NoFate to help develop or operate this approach. Bring an ambition, a useful contribution and something you are ready to change.

NoFate is a lab that runs in public. Receipts and failures included.