Gianni Romaní Chocce, a distinguished UCN academic, has been in Antofagasta for over 20 years, having appeared as the leader of several projects throughout his career.
It began with the creation of the Center for Entrepreneurship and SMEs (Cemp) in 2007, when no one was talking about the topic yet. Together with a colleague, they prepared this project, and the dean on duty didn't believe them at first, but they managed to convince him, and the following year, they launched it.
One of the CEMP's first investigations was a study of entrepreneurial activity in the region. It is currently in its sixteenth version, published annually without interruption, and is one of the longest-running projects of the center and the UCN.
Gianni Romaní stated that "another of CEMP's research projects is the international Guesss project, which I have been leading since 2016. This project measures the attitudes, aspirations, and entrepreneurial intent of university students. It's conducted through an online survey every two years, and as many universities as possible are invited to join the project. This provides a solid national sample size that will allow us to compile a report on the entrepreneurial intent of university students in Chile."
She highlighted that during 2023 they conducted the survey for the fourth version of the report and "we managed to get more than 15 universities to join the project, obtaining more than 6,000 responses from students across the country."
ECOSYSTEM
Another of the investigations he led is the group of intelligent ecosystems of Latin America, with the realization of the study on the systemic conditions for entrepreneurship in Antofagasta
Through hard work and effort, she has managed to excel in her field. Thus, Gianni Romaní emphasized that she has tried to do things well, giving her best in every endeavor. And without a doubt, nothing she does would be possible without the support of her husband and the good vibes of her family, her mother, and siblings. "My father, may he rest in peace, whom I still mourn, always instilled in me that honest work is above all else," she emphasized.
Regarding the people who motivated her to become who she is, the teacher commented: "My father was a visionary and always told me that I wasn't going to stay in Lima. You're going to end up in China, the United States, any country, except Peru," she emphasized.
"When I was invited to work in Chile, I was finishing my doctorate at the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. I met a Chilean academic who went to Brazil to do her doctorate, and at one point, when I was about to defend my thesis, she told me that her university (UCN) was hiring recent doctorates," she said.
She emphasized that "one day he showed up with a contract proposal and told me it would be your contract if you were up for it. That's when, for the first time, I saw that the UCN was in Antofagasta, not in Santiago, as I had imagined. And when I asked him, 'Isn't it in Santiago?' He told me it's in Antofagasta; you'll be closer to home (I'm Peruvian, and my family lives in Lima)," the professor said.
The academic believes that one of the key qualities that female leaders must possess is the ability to unite forces, as well as "the ability to create common projects that contribute to improving society."