Eduardo Raad

"After managing two software companies and becoming the director of technology of a third, Eduardo Raad was perfectly capable of developing almost any software imaginable in a safe and scalable way. And the product he devised was a financial technology platform, Dátil, which helps small and medium-sized enterprises to comply with their fiscal obligations. Thanks to the benefits which his project affords for this collective, Raad has been named as one of MIT Technology Review, Spanish Edition´s Innovators Under 35 Ecuador 2016.

Ecuador and other Latin American companies require businesses to present their tax statements and comply with other legal requirements through various electronic platforms which are not simple to navigate. And the solutions available on the market are, in the words of this young innovator, ""very costly, and the data they generate is squandered because they are limited to the provider or the user´s computer.""

Dátil, in contrast, allows the user to execute different procedures, from tax payments to billing, from a single platform. With the data introduced, the system generates a business profile in the cloud without the need to rely on other evaluation systems. These profiles, which carry an electronic signature certificate and are endorsed by the Central Bank of Ecuador and the Banco del Pacífico, can be used to request loans.

The program can be used via the internet, from a tablet or through electronic billing applications. In future, Raad plans to incorporate artificial intelligence within the accounting section. He highlights that a fairly common problem is ""knowing under which accounts to register certain bills and how to declare them."" The accountant must execute this task upon the reception of each bill, which means that ""artificial intelligence could be added to allow the system to learn and reduce the workload,"" he explains.

To date, Dátil has been integrally implemented in Ecuador and is operating in beta mode in Peru and Colombia, and is currently ""on the road to commercial success,"" according to the dean of academic development at the ORT University of Uruguay and jury member for the Innovators Under 35 Ecuador 2016 awards, Julio César Fernández Odella. In his opinion, Raad´s professional career ""demonstrates ingenuity, originality and perseverance."""