“We join the educational crusade by founding and financing private, non-profit educational institutions.”
In last Tuesday’s edition of El Economista, a very complete report was published on the business panorama of the prominent investor, Alberto Bailleres, who recently passed away. The business career of the late Baillères is certainly impressive, but I am particularly interested in highlighting in this installment his facet as a Mexican altruist and philanthropist. In this sense, my admired colleague, the economist Federico Rubli, literally dedicated his editorial of that same date “To Mr. Alberto Baillères, visionary patron of education”. How was that contribution made?
Baillères’ profile, which can be consulted on Wikipedia, shows the plethora of companies he established, the awards he received (among them, the Belisario Domínguez Medal from the Senate in 2015), the speeches he gave and the projects in which he participated. But in this account, it is important to highlight the institutions that support culture in which he was involved: since 1967, president of the Mexican Association of Culture and member of the Foundation for Mexican Letters, of the UNAM Foundation, AC: and of the Foundation itself, Alberto Baillères.
The aforementioned Mexican Association of Culture is the entity that sponsors the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico (ITAM), a university center that has been of great importance in promoting quality education in the country, since its establishment. I consult my aforementioned colleague, Federico Rubli, on this subject, and he explains with great enthusiasm: “Baillères dedicated a lot of his personal time to support ITAM and also a lot of resources” “Baillères never mixed things up… on the one hand there were his businesses and on the other the campaigns in which he acted as a philanthropist”. In terms of the businessman himself in his speech for the Belisario Domínguez Medal: “we join the educational crusade by founding and financing private, non-profit educational institutions.”
In colloquial words, my colleague Rubli explains to me that largely thanks to the direct support received from Alberto Baillères, for a long time, ITAM has been able to implement a scholarship program for low-income students that has helped to the training of many outstanding professionals for the benefit of the country. In personal testimony, he told me that on some occasion the rector of the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico, named Arturo Fernández, confidentially informed him that the scholarship students reached almost 40% of the total.
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