Project will allow the University of La Serena, Universidad Católica del Norte and CEAZA to create new research spaces and improve technological solutions for people and companies.

5 months after the Government launched the first 5G Campus in Chile, under the initiative of the “National 5G Observatory” - which seeks to promote collaboration of the digital ecosystem in the country - an agreement was signed online with 10 higher education and research belonging to the regions of Coquimbo, Valparaíso, Metropolitana and Maule for the creation of eight new local 5G Campuses, with the aim of experimenting and developing technological solutions for people, companies and productive sectors.

In the Coquimbo Region, they will be part of this “Movistar 5G Experience” project, promoted by the Ministry of Transport and Telecommunications and Movistar Chile, the University of La Serena (ULS), Universidad Católica del Norte (UCN) and the Center for Advanced Studies in Arid Zones (CEAZA).

In addition, the Universidad del Desarrollo, the DuocUC (of the Metropolitan Region) participate; the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, the University of Valparaíso, Universidad Federico Santa María, and Universidad de Playa Ancha (from the Valparaíso Region) and the University of Talca (from the Maule Region).

Companies such as Ericsson, Huawei and Nokia also adhere to the agreement, which will provide technological support for the development of these new research spaces, which will use 5G technology thanks to the experimental spectrum provided by SUBTEL. Thus, the Campus initiative now has 17 academic centers throughout the country.  

Regional modernization to contribute to the country

In the Coquimbo Region, the laboratory will be physically located at the ULS and will be managed jointly with the UCN and CEAZA.

For the Rector of the University of La Serena, Dr. Nibaldo Avilés, the implementation of 5G and its characteristics “come to complete the technological vision of our University, which has contemplated and cared about technological areas as enabling factors of IT infrastructure. , which allow us to have a future strategy providing universal, secure, anonymous, reliable access, with traceability and network neutrality, allowing our ULS community to have and enjoy the highest technological standards in trust, satisfaction, growth and leadership in his work. In this sense, the benefit of 5G, in speed and quality of the data network, will strengthen the backbone of institutional connections and connectivity, stimulating teaching, research and links with the environment, without limiting activities such as recreation, since the ULS also implemented both the academic Internet and the Internet of content providers.”

The Vice-Rector for Research and Postgraduate Studies at ULS, Dr. Eduardo Notte, explained that the equipment for the Movistar 5G Experience project “will be located in a laboratory specially equipped for the development of new technologies, under the framework of the Engineering 2030 project of the Faculty of Engineering. of the ULS. The Vice-Rector for Research and Graduate Studies appreciates the trust that Telefónica has placed in the ULS to house this equipment and also the trust of the UCN (Coquimbo headquarters) and CEAZA, with whom we will share this technology, in order to develop new initiatives that, without “Without a doubt, for the Coquimbo Region, it will be a significant advance.” 

This laboratory, as planned by the University's Faculty of Engineering, added Dr. Notte, “will be open to the entire ULS university community and, in particular, students and/or academics from UCN and CEAZA will be able to attend. With these institutions, the ULS will sign a collaboration agreement for the use of the 5G technology housed in these facilities.”

Along the same lines, the Vice-Rector of UCN Coquimbo Headquarters, Dr. Elvira Badilla Poblete, pointed out that the signing of this inter-institutional agreement is relevant for the university, “because it is an opportunity to fulfill our missionary functions, creating bidirectional links and generating new research, innovating and also collaborating in technological development from the region to the country. Without a doubt a remarkable and challenging initiative.”

Meanwhile, Carlos Olavarría, executive director of CEAZA, referred to the way in which this technology will contribute to the center's work.

“A good part of what we do is associated with the generation and analysis of a lot of data, and as this technology helps improve the speed of the network, we will be able to explore and improve our analyzes (…) it also leaves the door open to start to understand the capabilities and potential of this technology and that, in the future, we give it other uses," he said.

Likewise, the Seremi of Transport and Telecommunications of the Coquimbo Region, Juan Fuentes, highlighted that the deployment of the 5G network means tremendous progress in many areas such as telecommunications or telemedicine, for example.

“It is important to continue promoting public-private alliances on the issue of connectivity, especially if it benefits a sector as relevant as the academic world,” he said.

Nationwide initiative

The details of the program were announced this Thursday during a streaming activity chaired by the Minister of Transport and Telecommunications, Gloria Hutt; the Undersecretary of Telecommunications, Pamela Gidi, the President and CEO of Movistar Chile, Roberto Muñoz; and the Director of Movistar Empresas, Rodrigo Sajuria.

“Deploying the 5G network with territorial equity, encouraging its development and experimentation in the face of the new digital economy 4.0, are a priority,” said Minister Gloria Hutt, who highlighted that the deployment of this technology in four regions of the country, in alliance with higher education institutions, is proof of the commitment of public and private sectors to the creation of initiatives that value technological advantages.

For her part, the Undersecretary of Telecommunications, Pamela Gidi, emphasized that the main contribution of 5G will be the digital transformation of the country. “We deployed different 5G Campuses throughout Chile to promote collaborative work between public and private sectors and academia, to jointly develop actions that allow the exploration and education of this technology, she said.

Roberto Muñoz Laporte, President and CEO of Movistar Chile, highlighted that with this new circuit of 5G laboratories the aim is to promote the fifth mobile generation in the country, “providing an experimental and practice space that encourages its use and contributes to relevant technological solutions. , both for people and for companies.”

“We continue to reaffirm our commitment to digital development, through a powerful deployment of fiber optics nationwide, reinforcing our mobile network and preparing for the future commercial 5G,” he noted.

Finally, Rodrigo Sajuria, Director of Movistar Empresas, stressed that with this network of regional laboratories “we seek to explore different areas (…) make Industry 4.0, the Internet of Things and also smart cities a reality, always hand in hand with the generation of alliances with academia, sectoral industries and the digital entrepreneurship ecosystem.”

Unpublished 5G pilots

On the occasion, technology companies Ericsson, Huawei and Nokia exhibited innovative 5G use cases focused on the connected industry.

Ericsson, for example, demonstrated how 5G will benefit two key business areas in Chile; The “Smart 5G Ports” demo will allow you to see how the operational efficiency of ports connected to 5G increases.

Huawei, for its part, exhibited a use case focused on how the mining industry will benefit from 5G, by automating processes, analyzing them in detail and advancing the security of the activity to make it increasingly productive.

Finally, NOKIA focused on how 5G networks support the operation of robotic units such as the Spot (imaging robot) and their applications in various industrial environments including forestry and agricultural environments, mining, construction and large-scale projects.

The Annex Studies in homage to Alfredo Matus Olivier has been published in electronic format on the electronic book portal of the University of Chile. It corresponds to the second edition of the Philology Bulletin (2021), and contains 33 articles and research by various authors.

The Philology Bulletin, edited by Abelardo San Martín Núñez, Darío Rojas Gallardo and Soledad Chávez Fajardo, includes an article by the academic of the Department of Arts and Letters, Dr. Cristián Noemi, called "Argumentation in the pacification of social relations".

In this regard, the author points out that “the end of 2019 surprised the planet with massive and violent social demonstrations. In Chile, Hong Kong, Algeria, Lebanon, France, the Czech Republic, Kazakhstan, or Sudan, citizens of various ages, genders, and socioeconomic conditions filled the streets, protesting against political systems, the precariousness of pension models, the lack of public health, socioeconomic inequalities and access to public education, mainly. On our continent, countries such as Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Colombia have experienced one of the greatest social crises in their contemporary history, which has been further exacerbated by the pandemic derived from SARS, COVID-19.

In this sense, the pacification of human relationships and the resolution of social conflicts constitute one of the great ethical challenges that the social sciences must address. The topic is undoubtedly associated with the theory of argumentation, since there is a link both with the dialectical dimension of the problem, as parties with contradictory positions are involved, and with the pragmatic dimension, as the achievement of a certain good is sought. social: the solution of a conflict”.

In order to explore the specific ability to resolve conflicts of opinion in three representative age groups of the Chilean social structure, the author refers to aspects of the relationship between psychosocial characteristics of the Chilean social structure, and the degree or level of argumentative robustness achieved in their discursive products.

As pointed out by the Director of the Philology Bulletin, Abelardo San Martín, a virtual ceremony will soon be held to present the Tribute Annex, to which the different authors are invited.

It should be noted that this publication arises as a tribute to the academic Alfredo Matus Olivier, Professor Emeritus at the University of Chile and at the Andrés Bello University, Former Director of the Chilean Academy of Language, and Corresponding Member of the Royal Spanish Academy.

You can access both volumes of the Annex at the following links:

Studies in homage to Alfredo Matus Olivier. Volume I: Annex N°3 Philology Bulletin

Studies in homage to Alfredo Matus Olivier. Volume II: Annex N°3 Philology Bulletin

Written by Claudia Farías, Faculty of Humanities 

In a frank conversation, the former ULS academic, Carlos Calvo, elected to form the constituent convention, was emphatic in emphasizing the need for society to contribute to simplifying the complexity of the process, seeking paths and agreements aimed at general well-being. His expectation is that it be achieved through a Constitution that contains the core and holistic aspects of life, not just human life because in his own words "it makes no sense to preserve human life and not the rest."

In order to “design” a just society, the former academic and professor of the Department of Education of the University of La Serena, Dr. Carlos Calvo, is preparing to join the Constituent Convention, after being elected by a large majority in the district 5 of Andacollo, Ovalle, Los Vilos, Canela, Monte Patria, Salamanca, Combarbalá, Coquimbo, Río Hurtado, Illapel, La Higuera, La Serena, Paihuano, Punitaqui and Vicuña.

In a transparent conversation with the ULS Communications Directorate, the former Director of the Doctorate in Education with a mention in Pedagogical Mediation at the ULS and also the creator and national and international coordinator of the Teacher Exchange Program, PRIMA, spoke about the new challenges he will face in this important work, as well as the fears and expectations it entails.

The academic, who arrived at ULS in 1988, from the Universidad de Católica de Temuco, entered the area of ​​educational sociology, demonstrating that there are no limits between that discipline and anthropology. It is with this conviction that today he continues to face life and wants to make it clear, in his work to draft the new Constitution, that education goes hand in hand with all areas of life, that it is a process of simultaneous change and not in stages.

Professor Calvo, you are recognized for your transformative spirit in education and your drive for a paradigmatic change. Will you face participation in the Constituent Assembly, from that same "seal"?

I can't take this challenge in any other way than this seal because that's exactly me. One is the thought you have; and that person is me. That is why, from the socialist party, they invited me to be an independent candidate supported by them.

But I want to clarify what it means to be transformative: it is the study of research. Fortunately I have lived in many countries, in the United States, in Mexico and Belgium and I have that cross-cultural experience that allowed me to know how people live, are educated, how they value school, university; And furthermore, in my doctorate I specialized in comparable education of the educational systems of different parts of the world and also in educational anthropology, knowing what the culture of these peoples from other parts of the world is like, and also seeing the element called school failure.

All of this led me to realize that school is poorly conceived and today we have children sitting in front of the computer, at the blackboard, trying to get them to repeat what the teachers have to teach. If these children make mistakes, we give them a bad grade... that bad conception of school is what we must transform.

What skills of those who practice academia and teaching will be useful for the process that will soon begin?

I believe that all teachers have the skills to face any process, but what we have to do is let the students learn and how do we let them learn? In chaotic contexts, playing, hypothesizing, exploring, experimenting, being attentive to that we can be a contribution. From that perspective we must contribute, realizing what is needed. Nowadays we have everything segmented.

You speak reliably of the spirit of transforming, but that spirit is not established in our society... how to transform this society from your role?

Society is transformed, even if we don't like it, we are constantly changing, but we are the people who have an attitude towards society and we think that they do not change and that we are always the same. It is for this reason that parents continue to treat their children as if they had not grown up and do not give them responsibilities so that they assume the consequences of their own actions.

I firmly believe that as a society we do not understand what a process is. The processes are simultaneous and not sequential. Today there is social responsibility of people who do not assume because among other things, we do not know how to sanction the passage of time, so we juxtapose and do not integrate. That is what we are going to have to do at the convention, holistically integrate all the aspects that constitute human life and nature.

What will be your contribution, as an academic, to this constituent process?

I have been working on two main ideas. The first is that we have to create a new constitution and that it must be brief; The second point is that it must be a holistic constitution of life, where everything is intertwined with everything, in such a way that when I talk about education it is understood that I am also talking about health, housing, the environment and other issues.

What expectations do you have from the constituent process and also, what fears and concerns?

There are several dreams and I say “disueños”, taking an expression from some Colombian friends, where I want to design my dreams and I have a leading role in what I want to do; and what do I want? a just society where hunger does not exist. Today in the world there is plenty of food, but it is poorly distributed and I want to dream that we are going to change that... I want a joyful society. But I have a fear in this construction of my dream and that is that we will not be able to dialogue and that we will become so polarized that we will not be able to listen to each other.

One of the interesting discussions about the next step is related to the way in which they will meet. If you do it from the center, the peripheries; in-person or telematic sessions. What is your opinion on this topic?

I understand that for pandemic reasons some sessions will be through remote connection, but I would like them to be physical in person, so we can see each other, be able to talk in person and hopefully in different parts of Chile for a symbolic topic.

You talk about designing society by dreaming… how do you “design” a new education by applying it in this constituent process?

I would say that we can do this by allowing people to act in a way that respects the common good, and what is the limit? When I start to affect the other and for that we have to agree.

How can we understand this constituent process, from the logic of “designing”, if today it is so different?

As I mentioned before, my greatest apprehension is that we are not able to dialogue and that is supported because we have a mental scheme, a paradigm, that makes us see everything separate from everything and each one takes refuge in his or her knowledge.

How can it be directly applied in education?

Deschooling education and that means taking away everything that is school. Allow the student, regardless of their age, to explore and know and become aware of the world in which they are. By leaving the generic in the new Constitution we leave the path clear for laws to be made regarding that and so that indefinite profit does not continue to exist.

Finally, the new constituent called on the citizens and indicated that “they have to help us not to denounce what is bad, we already know that. What I would ask citizens is to help us simplify the complexity of society. My dream is to have a very brief constitution, which has the core and holistic aspects of life, not just human life, because it makes no sense to preserve human life and not the rest.”

Written by Patricia Castro, DirCom.

The initiative considers the delivery of testimonies, information capsules and infographics through social networks and institutional mail, with the hashtags #TúEresImportante #CuídateDelCoronavirus.

Due to the increase in positive cases of coronavirus in the Coquimbo Region and, particularly, in the cases of young people affected by the virus, the COVID ULS Commission called on the Directorate of Teaching (DiDoc) and the General Directorate of Student Affairs ( DGAE) of the University of La Serena to start an awareness and self-care campaign for the prevention of coronavirus.

The DiDoc campaign considers three months, during which testimonies, information capsules and infographics will be shared through social networks and institutional email, with the hashtags #TúEresImportante #CuídateDelCoronavirus.

The Director of ULS Teaching, Dr. Pamela Labra, pointed out that “the focus of the campaign is to promote self-care of our undergraduate students, regarding the use of masks, respect for social distancing and, above all, now that we are in a stage where the age range has changed, promote vaccination to prevent the risk they could face if they were infected. We seek to contribute and create awareness that self-care is a tool to avoid contagion for them, as well as for their families.”

It should be noted that this initiative has the support of the ULS Student Federation, which has carried out joint work with the members of the Teaching Directorate. In this regard, Carla Trigo, vice president of FEULS, indicated that “this campaign is important because it raises awareness in the university community of the health crisis we are facing. Although we have been there for a year and months, it is necessary to continue emphasizing personal and collective care. Today, we have a vaccine, and this campaign reinforces the responsibility it provides.”

The content will be available on Instagram @ComunicacionesDocenciaULS and the website of the Teaching Directorate (http://docencia.userena.cl/), in addition to social networks and various supports of the University of La Serena.

Written by Daniela Cabrera, DiDoc

The technological tool specialized in collecting findings from inspections on conveyor belts and that in the future will allow system failures to be digitalized and achieve better solution and reaction time.

With the aim of promoting and strengthening the commercialization of technologies or ventures, the “Rapid Implementation Pilots” contest was developed, framed in the Technology Commercialization and Technology-Based Entrepreneurship Axis of the FIULS 2030 Project. One of the winning projects of this contest was the Conveyor Inspector project, a technological tool that allows for reportability and reliability in conveyor belt systems.

The team is made up of Andrés Pastén, a graduate of the Mechanical Civil Engineering Degree at the University of La Serena, and Matías Zarate, a graduate of Computer and Information Engineering at the UCN, who in 2019 were awarded the resources from the program. “New Engineering for the 2030 regions” by CORFO.

The professional of the Technology Commercialization and Technology-Based Entrepreneurship Axis of the FIULS 2030 Project, Ricardo Campos, who has accompanied the development of the "Rapid implementation pilots" project, regarding the progress of the value proposal presented by the team indicated that " "This is an innovation that uses information technologies to systematize and standardize processes in an industry as important to the country as mining."

Conveyor Inspector is a technological tool specialized in collecting findings from inspections on conveyor belts, data processing and generation of management reports, applied to conveyor belt systems, which can be implemented in any processing plant that has these systems.

Matías Zarate, Graduate of the Computer and Information Engineering Degree from the UCN, said about Conveyor, “it is a cell phone application in which findings of failures in mining equipment are reported for later visualization on a web platform where information is delivered. interest as reliability graphs by equipment.”

In recent months the project team has focused on testing the platform and has dedicated itself to searching for companies that want to test the application in a real environment, “during the pandemic the development of the process has been difficult, But little by little we have been resuming the project and now we are advancing in the final details,” said Andrés Pastén.

Regarding the expectations of this project, Pastén stressed that “we want to digitize the failure information to the point of sensorizing the mining plants, and convert the conveyor inspector into the main source of failure information, so that in the future more advanced algorithms can be applied. machine learning that can provide information on the reasons for failures and provide them, to achieve a better reaction time.”

The coordinator of the Technology Commercialization and Technology-Based Entrepreneurship Axis of the FIULS 2030 Project and Academic of the Department of Industrial Engineering, Alejandro Álvarez, highlighted the importance of the support that the Faculty of Engineering provides to the students, "the support for this type of initiatives "It is essential to continue strengthening the entrepreneurial ecosystem in our university. This shows that, with the appropriate support, we are capable of delivering to the community in general, value propositions appropriate to the environment in which we belong."

Currently the Conveyor Inspector team is validating the price of the service, then the corresponding tests will be carried out with companies and finally it can be launched on the market.

Written by María José Barraza, FIULS 2030 Project.

The PACE ULS Higher Education Support (AES) component seeks to create virtual spaces in order to improve the support offered by the government measure to its students within the institution.

The Access to Higher Education Program (PACE) belonging to the Office of Student Support and Monitoring (OAME) of the University of La Serena, through its AES PACE ULS component, organized the first virtual meeting with its tutors, within the framework of the 4th Specialization Module of the Training Program of the OAME ULS Tutor School, in order to provide tools to analyze the needs of its tutors, from the psycho-educational area.

The importance of this activity lies in the fact of being able to know the perspectives of those who teach the tutorials, since by having closer contact with the student community, they can detect group needs in order to raise alerts of different types, which will allow the AES PACE ULS team to act promptly on this information.

Regarding the instance, the AES PACE ULS Psychologist, Paula Vargas, stated: “peer tutorials are spaces of psychoeducation where the tutors not only talk about academic instances, but they are also spaces where they talk about time organization, where communication techniques are transferred. study, where the strategies they have to study and how to face evaluations are discussed.” In this sense, Iván Jaramillo, tutor of the Journalism degree, expressed: “it is important to remember that tutoring must be understood as a space for mutual learning, understanding and empathy, since the human being behind the student must be seen. ”.

For her part, Javiera Contreras, Academic Mentor in the PACE AES ULS English area, declared the following: “these sessions are beneficial to be able to share good practices, learn with peers and so that tutors can apply this knowledge in their work.” .