A committee, led by Carlos Castillo-Chávez, traveled to Bogota on May 18 and 19 to participate in the First International Congress of Science Technology and Innovation of America organized by Universidad Nacional de Colombia. The objective of this congress was to empower research in Latin America and address the challenges of the continent, especially in the areas of research, education, biodiversity; sustainability; public health and tropical diseases.

Universidad Nacional de Colombia and Universidad de los Andes, representing Colombia, and Arizona State University for the US participated in this international event too.

Part of the Yachay Tech committee that travelled to Bogota was Juergen Reichardt, Vice Chancellor of Research and Innovation; Andreas Griewank, Dean of the School of Mathematics and Information Technology; Spiros Agathos, Dean of the School of Biological Sciences and Engineering; Paola Ayala, Dean of the School of Physics and Nanotechnology and Vladimiro Mujica, Dean of the School of Chemical Sciences and Engineering. They all participated in different panels and presentations during the two days of the event.

Students Doménica Garzón, Ronald Cárdenas and María Emilia Calle participated in this congress too. Doménica and Ronald presented their projects IYAYKU and WATER Y, developed at Yachay Tech, while María Emilia Calle gave a presentation on “The role of the undergraduate students in scientific-social entrepreneurship”.

Additionally, Yachay Tech signed interinstitutional cooperation agreements with Universidad de los Andes and Universidad Nacional de Colombia. These agreements seek to generate and promote projects, programs, and activities in the areas of education, sciences, technology, engineering, math, computer science, and other areas of interest at undergraduate and graduate levels.