Multidisciplinary teams from four Latin American universities successfully participated in the II International Bootcamp Challenge 2023, organized by the Chilean universities Universidad Mayor and Universidad de Chile. This event is the main multi-site collaborative activity in the LATAM cluster of the Vertically Integrated Projects Global Consortium.
“You are part of an international multilateral organization’s consultant team, and you have the challenge to deliver a set of technical-political recommendations to a local authority located in a climate risk area in Latin America. Regarding this situation, what will be your strategic proposal for the local actors?”. With this initial question, more than 60 students and faculties from several Latin American universities participated in the second bootcamp of the LATAM International Challenge 2023, part of the VIP LATAM multi-site collaboration activities. In the workshop participated three current VIP Sites, the Chilean universities Universidad Mayor and Universidad de Chile, and the Colombian team from Universidad ICESI. Also, in this year, two other prospective sites where included: Universidad Peruana de Ciencias Aplicadas UPC from Perú, and the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina UFSC from Brasil.
The Bootcamp was carried out in a hybrid mode simultaneously in Brasil, Chile, Perú and Colombia, including also experts connected from the United Kingdom. The students developed technical solutions for three risk areas in the region: Guajira, Colombia; Santiago, Chile; and Piura, Perú. The teams included students from different undergraduate programs, such as architecture, geography, veterinary, engineering, business administration, law, public administration, electronic, among others. Over the workshop, the students and faculties were advised by a group of international experts from UNESCO and the four participating universities. Those specialists delivered technical and political recommendation for each study case. At the end of the workshop, each team presented their project to an international committee, including climate change and sustainability experts and faculties from Latin American VIP-sites.
One of the participants, Francisca Romero, a student from Universidad Mayor’s Veterinary Medicine School remarked the importance of this activity to promote a more powerful learning process. In this sense, commented: “this type of activities is very important, mostly because we were able to work with other students from different backgrounds, programs, and levels in an international environment. We worked all together researching how design a solution for climate change in risk areas in our continent. I think that is important because I can develop personal and professional skills that I will use in the future and we were able to learn how we can contribute with specific knowledge of our discipline to people from other areas of knowledge”.
Submitted by Cristian Celedón Gamboa, Director de Innovación Educativa, Universidad Mayor
