Accel Alum Roberto Bunge is Redefining South American Innovation and Entrepreneurship

The Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP) has always worked to strengthen the entrepreneurship ecosystem and scale responsible innovation around the world. Roberto Bunge, Stanford PhD (Aeronautics and Astronautics) and an alum of STVP’s Accel Leadership Program, exemplifies this ethos as the founding director of the Department of Engineering at Argentina’s Universidad de San Andrés and its undergraduate program in Artificial Intelligence Engineering, the first of its kind in South America. His journey illustrates the powerful connections and transformative learning experiences that STVP offers, shaping leaders who are driving entrepreneurial innovation to address society’s most pressing challenges. STVP caught up with Roberto about the evolution of science, technology, and entrepreneurship education in Argentina and how his Stanford experience has informed his trajectory and perspective on problem solving.

How did you arrive at founding and leading the Department of Engineering at the Universidad de San Andrés?

Argentina has many challenges, and certainly part of the solution involves harnessing science and technology, becoming a science-based society. A big piece of this is tech entrepreneurship. 

After finishing my PhD at Stanford and gaining experience in the startup world of Silicon Valley, I returned with a strong conviction: Argentina needs to foster its science- and technology-based economy if it wants to have a thriving society. I had the chance to connect with Universidad de San Andrés’s leadership and pitch an ambitious vision to develop modern and innovative academic programs in engineering and applied sciences. It was a vote of confidence in the idea that we could bring science, technology, innovation, entrepreneurship together, in a forward-thinking approach to education and thus catalyze change in Argentina’s academic and industrial ecosystem.

I started in 2019, and we launched what was South America’s very first undergraduate engineering program in AI. Fast forward six years, and we now also have a bachelor of engineering in biotechnology, a bachelor of engineering in sustainability, a master’s in AI – all of which are first of their kind in Argentina – as well as a PhD in applied sciences, totaling almost 600 students across all programs. We are building and empowering a new generation of science and technology leaders and entrepreneurs in Argentina and South America, so that our society can grow stronger and thrive.

In what ways did your time at Stanford inform your current work?

In my time at Stanford, including in STVP’s Accel Leadership Program, I was like an explorer. I went to the other side of the mountain and came back and said, Look, I saw all of these things! There is so much we can do to equip our country in ways that will allow our entrepreneurial offerings to grow.

I was particularly inspired by the synergy between academia and industry at Stanford and STVP. There is constant collaboration and learning, and elevating real-world challenges and entrepreneurial solutions. My thesis adviser, Professor Ilan Kroo, in addition to being a great scientist and peer-reviewed researcher, also started a revolutionary company with Larry Page’s backing, who at some point visited my lab to learn more about what we were doing. While founding Ceres AI Inc., my own startup, I pitched Vinod Khosla. I was in Jerry Yang’s office. You gain tremendous insight being adjacent to Silicon Valley. And STVP is about merging teaching and research with application, and how education can translate to success – both economic and societal.

What’s the biggest thing your time at Stanford and STVP gave you?

The time I spent at STVP really showed me what a rich entrepreneurial education can look like: outcome- and impact-oriented, but also very full of investment in students. STVP empowers its students through courses but also by supporting the growth and personal development of all of its fellows so intently, and taking the time to build community. I am still in touch with my cohort, they are all companions who are doing great work; one is a professor at Georgia Tech, another has a startup, another is a VC. They are people I reach out to anytime. Our time at Stanford bolstered our potential.

What do you see as the role of innovation and entrepreneurship education in terms of addressing critical challenges?

All of our bachelor’s programs in engineering have entrepreneurship as a mandatory course – not because all of the graduates are necessarily going to be entrepreneurs, but because the entrepreneurial mindset is a highly effective method of problem solving and critical thinking for all aspects of life. Even if you go on to become a professor, you need to identify areas of opportunity, craft a vision, attract talent, make plans to scale and grow, look forward in time. Understanding business models, intellectual property, and management are all critical to navigating challenges in whatever field. How do we think about these challenges in a different way to find the solutions? It’s often about reframing the problem, something I learned at STVP from my mentor, Tina Seelig. As my favorite STVP coffee mug says: “Every problem is an opportunity. The bigger the problem the bigger the opportunity.” This simple phrase has energized and propelled me forward every day for the past 6 years of journey.

What’s next for your program and entrepreneurship at Universidad de San Andrés?

Universidad de San Andrés has a center for entrepreneurship in the business school, and we are in the process of creating a tech-oriented innovation center in the Engineering Department. As our students begin to graduate and go out and go out to the world, we are in a way building a foundry, a resource for students to come. Graduates are going to connect back as alumni, much like alumni do at Stanford, with stories of their own startups, their own challenges and triumphs. In fact, we just launched a new cross-disciplinary course called “Extreme Innovation” where engineering students, together with design, neuroscience, and business students, spend a semester in a deep dive of ideating and prototyping creative solutions to real-world problems. 

Now I am living my dream – building innovative academic programs and creating a new generation of tech-leaders who undoubtedly will have a lasting impact in my home country and the region. This is a great challenge, and a great opportunity, for science-based innovation and entrepreneurship to play a key role.