Code Work and Code Switching across the techno-border lands.

From American public media, this is Marketplace Tech.

I'm Lily Dramale. Jamalade. Every tech company needs a good origin story, the startup.

Every tech company needs a good origin story.

The startup garage, the dorm room, and the hacker house

are firmly embedded in American tech mythology.

For hacker entrepreneurs in Mexico,

the border with the U.S. looms large. A subset of them hoped to one day

cross it and pitch their big idea to venture capitalists in Silicon

Circuit in Mexico. That's the subject of MIT Anthropologist Hector

Belltrons new book, Code Work, which comes out today.

He details how participation in Hackathon book, Code Work, which comes out today.

He details how participation in hackathons holds currency for coders, but also for Mexican

politicians.

The events are frequently sponsored by the government with big promises of funding and support.

But the prize all too often is a handshake and photo op with a public official and maybe a thank you letter but no real investment.

And as these new campaigns, new politicians emerge, the entrepreneurs and these hacker entrepreneurs emerged as these ideal subjects to work with who could take matters into their own hands and resolve some of these issues.

So they wanted to be close to the young, to the new, but also to these self-conscious younger folks who were apparently

solving some of the issues, you know, they were being pressured to solve themselves

from the perspective of the state.

You really place us inside of these events, these hackathons in Mexico,

and it's clear that there are distinct cultures at various ones.

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