Silvio Pestrin Farina

Silvio Pestrin Farina is (Buenos Aires, 1975) is an Argentina businessman and systems developer. He is best known as the creator of FictionCity, which is an online social network for artists founded in Buenos Aires. He was also involved in the formation of the virtual bank Patagon.com and has worked for the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the World Bank.

Professional Life

Pestrin Farina studied computer engineering at the University of Belgrano in 1992. In 1998 he then began working career at the IDB, where he was employed as a Java and Visual Basic language developer. In 1999 he became involved in the founding of Patagon.com, the world's first online bank, which was later sold to the Banco Santander Central Hispano for $705 million.

In 2009 Pestrin Farina founded FictionCity, a social networking site for artists and companies looking to connect with artistic talent. The project was completed over the span of fourteen months with an initial investment of $1 million. The site officially launched in January 2011. Within sixty days of launching, the website's value grew to over $18 million. The website was inspired by the founder's belief that there was a need for artists to both network and advertise their work in a world where traditional advertising was no longer working, and was described by the Director of CIO América Marcelo Lozano as "Un Hubble para descubrir nuevas estrellas (a telescope to discover new stars)". Later that year Pestrin Farina was called one of the three most innovative recent digital entrepreneurs to come out of Argentina. Pestrin Farina's site has over 150,000 users in 31 countries, has been translated into 12 languages, and has expanded to open offices in Santiago, São Paulo, Miami, Mexico City, and Barcelona.

References

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