Panama, Casco Viejo
Casco Antiguo, San Felipe


It is 15 minutes away from Casco Antiguo, into the ex- Canal Zone. Ciudad del Saber or City of Knowledge is literally a city within one of the former US military bases called Clayton.  One of the most visionary compounds in Panama, it has become a technopark that holds universities, laboratories, incubators for young entrepreneurs and just all sorts of new stuff. If it is revolutionary, ground breaking, you can get in and benefit from a wide platform of incentives.

So who is there? for example, INDICASAT. Back when I used to work with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, I learned about the close collaboration between STRI and INDICASAT. This is the Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas Avanzadas de Alta Tecnología which carries research at a molecular basis on tropical plants to identify possible medicines against a number of diseases such as cancer and many others. There is also the Legal Medicine Institute with its DNA labs and the Agriculture Research Institute which is building its own labs on agricultural biotechnology. By the way the Centro Nacional de Metrología has even an atomic clock to warranty everyone is on time... well, I guess they also do other more important things than checking out who is late to work.

It also has something called the Acelerador de Empresas de Panama which has a project called Angel Investors for those who like betting to cutting edge projects from young entrepreneurs.  It also just inaugurated the Panama International Hotel School, which is believe it or not, the first hotel school in Panama. this school is operating under the Holiday Inn brand and was built in response to the fast demand of professionals in the field.

United Nations has its regional center in City of Knowledge. From there, a compound of their own programs such as the Food Programs and many others are hosting headquarters for Latinamerica and Central America. But City of knowledge also hosts CATHALAC, one of those oscure organisms no one knows about, but that they do an incredibly important job: it is dedicated to the distribution of knowledge about production, distribution and management of our hidric resources, alias what to do and take care of water. Everyone thinking gas/ petroleum is our future´s main problem... think again.

In general, the Technopark has about 63 affiliate companies. The City of Knowledge and its group of unusual tenants have already made investments close to $50 million dollars in infrastructure and services. It is all about generation and sharing of knowledge.  For them, the future is today´s challenge.

Learn more about their projects and what they offer: www.cdspanama.org