A backstage look at how chaos, rhythm, and risk collided to reveal Latin America’s climate-tech moment.
By Andrés Baehr, Managing Partner at Savia Ventures
Ten minutes before the opening of Climática 2025, one of the event speakers looked at me and asked, “Do you have a clicker for my slides?”
“I need one to control the flow of my presentation,” he added.
I looked at Bryony, Savia’s Associate, hoping she had a miracle. She nodded. “We don’t have a clicker,” I replied.
MC Wukong and Cabra Frenesí, two rappers from Mexico City, were already on stage. “We’ll figure it out,” I said — it was partially a prayer.
We were missing more than just a clicker. The four event volunteers hadn’t shown up. Despite earlier sound checks, the beat wasn’t loud enough for the rappers to freestyle. Workshop TVs weren’t set up. Registration had opened half an hour early, yet most attendees were late. I turned on my microphone, it was dead.
Tech innovation is a lot like freestyle rap: creation, trial, and adaptation around whatever limitations you face — financial, regulatory, or musical.
Together with Reciprocal and a group of co-organizers, this was the essence of Climática: a curated gathering of leaders in technology and sustainability in Mexico City, spotlighting Latin America’s emerging climate-tech opportunity.
But just like a freestyle session, we wanted it raw, interactive, unpredictable — something between a hackathon and a street cypher.
Despite all the planning, something always goes wrong. It’s a law of physics. And when you try to do things differently, the odds of messing up multiply. I knew this. Still, as guests began arriving, I held my dead microphone like a hamster exhaling its last breath.
Breaking the Esquemática
Three months earlier, I’d been on the phone with Melanie Larkins, another keynote speaker.
“At Climática there will be no opening speech,” I told her, “but instead a freestyle rap performance. No panels — just roundtables moderated by experts where everyone gets a say.”
She paused for a second. “After so many events, I’ve got event exhaustion. Do you think I could sing and guide a breathwork session during my talk?” She was in.
Climática’s core was a series of themed roundtables. Each table had to land one concrete insight — from macroeconomics to systems change.
Three weeks before the event, we were already at capacity: 120 hand-picked attendees, over 30 international guests flying to Mexico City, and sponsors brought in through Reciprocal and AMEXCAP, the Mexican Association of Private Capital. It would be the largest in-person gathering of the Savia community to date.
We didn’t know if skipping an opening speech would confuse people. We just knew we’d rather fail at something new than succeed at something safe. Entrepreneurs eat that for breakfast.
Dropping the First Verses
By the time the opening freestyle ended, the crowd was buzzing. Hanny, Savia’s Chief Science Officer turned last-minute DJ, was slaying it. The energy rolled seamlessly into the keynotes — from sustainability leadership and climate solutions to photographer Felipe Jácome’s haunting Amazon oil-spill portraits.
Across nine roundtables, insights emerged like verses — sharp, unscripted, and region-specific:
- The New Centre of Gravity: Latin America’s moment depends on collaboration and intelligent natural resource management.
- Trash Talk: Circularity starts with consciousness, not capital.
- Farm to Table: Supply-chain decarbonization is the region’s trillion-dollar opportunity.
- Prototype to Powerhouse: Scaling deep tech is trench work — every pilot, every customer, a battle.
I wasn’t sure whether the audience would dive in or leave moderators hanging in awkward silence. Instead, engagement was so high that the challenge became cutting the discussions short to stay on schedule.
By the closing plenary, all nine insights had been woven into a single freestyle lyric performed by Cabra Frenesí — The Climática Anthem. We were perfectly on time. People were connecting. Even the networking breaks felt too short.
Every Movement Needs a Beat
I give full credit to everyone organizing innovation and impact events. It’s a grind, and it matters. Whether it’s a thousand-person conference or a ten-person coffee chat, these gatherings push the ecosystem forward.
But unless the event is hosted by the Coalition on Procedural Tax Efficiency (COPROTE), there’s no reason for a conference to be boring. An event about innovation that looks like a replica of the last hundred events is a contradiction in itself.
Our closing plenary flowed into three drummers and an Afrobeat dancer who pulled the crowd to their feet. As the tempo slowed and the crowd drifted toward the after-party, I exhaled. The temática of Climática had been accomplished.
“This was an anti-conference,” Juan Orlandi, from Magical VC, told me — the best compliment ever.
To grow the impact movement and lift Latin America, we’ll need more capital, stronger collaboration, and smarter regulation. That much I know.
But maybe, what this movement really needs is more rhythm.
