During the “Summer Day Science-Industry” Seminar. Science 2030”, the associated universities showed their scientific projects, which seek to impact the territory, directly benefiting citizens and generating important information for decision-making in the territory.

With the aim of promoting technology transfer, innovation and scientific-technological-based entrepreneurship, the University of La Serena in consortium with the Federico Santa María University and the University of Valparaíso showed in Valparaíso their scientific works with an impact on the community, within the framework of the end of the first stage of the Science and Innovation program for 2030, an initiative financed by Corfo.

During the seminar “Summer Day Science-Industry. Science 2030", the associated universities showed their scientific projects, which seek to impact the territory, on the one hand, directly benefiting the community of a certain context, such as generating and consolidating relevant information for decision-making in the territory. The University of La Serena demonstrated the Prommra Laboratory and the Deep Learning project applied to public smart mobility.

The ULS Vice-Rector for Research and Postgraduate Studies, Dr. Eduardo Notte Cuello, He pointed out that the first stage of the project was an opportunity for the universities of the consortium, "on the one hand, we had the opportunity to take a new look at what we traditionally do in the different areas of science, as well as discover the potential we have as consortium", adding that "the objective is that academics who do science can have another vision and redirect what is done in the application of that knowledge. This project also contemplates the possibility of redesigning the meshes of careers and profiles to achieve a change in the direction of this project, it will be necessary for academics who develop fundamental science to integrate 'young' researchers into their work teams who have this more applied vision of science, so that "can encourage the applicability of fundamental sciences. This directly involves linkage with the environment, interest and participation of the industry in the development of this new vision of sciences, which undoubtedly requires a change of mentality of the different actors."

Expanding the field of action of science is one of the purposes pursued by the University of La Serena. In this sense, the Dean of the Faculty of Sciences, Dr. Amelia Ramírez Rivera, stated that “science must expand its scope of action to be in the social and productive environments of the territory, generate a bidirectional link with citizens and the regional business community, transferring our knowledge to regional tasks. In this sense, our University has a vast tradition and leadership not only in the Norte Chico area, but also in the northern macro area. Corfo has recognized this and has linked us to UTFSM and the University of Valparaíso to focus on the new challenges that our country demands of us.”

For the benefit of the regional community

As an example of the applications that can emerge from the knowledge generated by fundamental sciences, the following initiatives were presented: 

The FIC project “Deep Learning applied to public smart mobility”, which seeks to create a smart city platform based on techniques for the automatic classification and segmentation of images using Deep Learning models, applied to the morphological classification of galaxies, to detect, Automatically identify and quantify the vehicular flow in the Balmaceda axis of the city of La Serena, using the security cameras of the Traffic Control Operational Unit (UOCT).

Regarding the Laboratory for Prospecting, Monitoring and Modeling of Agricultural and Environmental Resources (PROMMRA), its purpose is to contribute to reducing technological gaps in the agri-food sector, by detecting needs and generating knowledge, identifying the impact on systems. productive and development.

To achieve this, it carries out research and development initiatives with different sources of financing, both public and private. Its interventions have been concentrated in the arid semi-arid territories of the country, mainly between the regions of Atacama and Valparaíso.