Vicepresident Of Bogota Branch Of The Universidad Nacional De Colombia “Towards A World Class Research University” Unal Bogota

III International Engineering Seminar
Vicepresident of Bogota Branch of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia

“Towards a world class research university”

August 13th 2009

First, I want tothank the professors and students who participated in the Third International Engineering Seminar at the Schools of Engineering of the National University of Colombia from the Bogota, Medellin andManizales Branches. This 2009 third annual session of the International Engineering Seminar brought professors from world-class universities offering the opportunity to graduate and undergraduatestudents, and professionals from Colombia and our region of influence to get up-to-date state of the art developments in engineering research about challenging world problems raging form clean sources ofenergy, environment protection and health, efficient transportation, software development, communications technologies, innovation, modern manufacturing to engineering more reliable and equitablefinancial markets and economies.

Larry Summers, the Chair of US President’s National Economics Council, pointed out recently in the midst of this acute recession that the world is going through a shiftthat is moving the economy towards a “more environmentally oriented” and “less energy production oriented”, “more bio and software and civil engineering oriented”, “less financial engineering oriented”,“more middle-class oriented” and less oriented to income growth that is disproportionate towards a very small share of the population.” Let me congratulate the School of Engineering for being right onpoint in issues that matter in this annual session of seminar that we are closing today.

This International Engineering Seminar, in just three years, is producing amazing results. We have nowstrengthened international institutional relations, a fluid academic and research exchange with the world-class institutions, that took up the challenge to accompany the National University of Colombia...