ECUADOR TO LAUNCH UNIVERSITY CITY WITH INVESTMENT OF $ 1.04 BILLION TO BE SURROUNDED BY RESEARCH LABS INDUSTRIAL PARK AND ULTIMATELY A CITY FOR WHICH CONSTRUCTION STARTED It is 2043 and this burgeoning city of 100,000 is a high-tech Mecca. Ecuador – once known for its crude and bananas – is now the Silicon Valley of the tropics, the Singapore of the Andes. That’s the vision authorities see in the swirling dust kicked up by dozens of bulldozers and more than 2,000 construction workers at a remote site almost two hours from the capital, writes Jim Wyss for Miami Herald. It’s called Yachay, the City of Knowledge, and President Rafael Correa refers to it as the country’s Moon Shot – a US$1.04 billion initiative to build a research university surrounded by labs, industrial parks and, ultimately, a city. The project aims to attract the world’s brightest minds and most innovative companies, propelling this small and impoverished South American nation into the 21st century as a leader in engineering, clean energy, biotechnology and environmental sciences. Correa calls it “the most important project for the country in the last 100 years,” even as some fret the country is plowing money into a mirage.
Posted on: Wed, 17 Dec 2014 02:49:49 +0000
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