Culiacán, Sinaloa. May 24^th, 2016 (Conacyt Information Agency).- Specialized human resources formation to offer technological services to the state, the country and the world, these are some objectives pursued by the Technological Innovation Park (Parque de Innovación Tecnológica, PIT) of the Autonomous University of Sinaloa (Universidad Autónoma de Sinaloa, UAS), a research centre that has two years in operation.

The park’s director, José Ramón López Arellano, pointed out that the idea for PIT creation started four years ago, upon the initiative of state government and UAS. It was until 2014 when the project was consolidated, with extraordinary resources from the National Council of Science and Technology (Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología, Conacyt), an amount of 22 million pesos, allocated to UAS.

«We work on different axis, at world level. First task was searching regional opportunity areas and how to foster university’s strengths so these could have an impact in the region», he commented.

During its first month, he added, UAS’ and PIT’s authorities held talks with business area. At that point, was managed a project with the National Electoral Institute (Instituto Nacional Electoral, INE), related to the monitoring system for local elections. However, due to structural reforms and INE’s operative changes, the project was stopped; it is contemplated to pick up the idea this year.

During its first three months, PIT-UAS achieved to define its position in the state, thanks to its multidisciplinary work with teachers and students from different UAS’ faculties.

«Some enterprises contacted us, some were trying to solve problems of projects for Innovation Incentives Programme (Programa de Estímulos a la Innovación, PEI), and in practically three months we managed to have the work done by a university workers group. That gave us very good fame in Sinaloa, given that us, as an option, turned out to be effective and efficient for the necessities of the business sector», commented López Arellano.

The triple helix

PIT-UAS fuses economic development’s three axis: industry, government and academic abilities. For its first operation year, the park had four institutional projects, subsidized by Conacyt, due to UAS management. And this is why, said the rector of the institution, Juan Eulogio Guerra Liera, the park aims contributing to specialised human resources formation.

«It’s about integrating multidisciplinary teams, offering services, growing ideas and commercializing technological products, that’s why we’re looking for the approach of the public and private sectors.»

«Within this institution appropriate researches take place inside its Educative Technologies, Motion Capture, Automation and Control, and Mobile Computing and Tracking laboratories», he said.

Connected Mexico Project

The Technological Innovation Park was selected as State Operative Instance for the Connected Mexico Project in Sinaloa.

State authorities announced that the programme seeks to provide free wireless network access to all the public centres of the country, reason why, through PIT, UAS work was requested in order to elaborate a market and feasibility assessment.

In 2018 the goal is to connect 250 thousand places all over the country and at least 8 thousand public areas in Sinaloa, according to the programme characteristics.

PIT-UAS general director, José Ramón López Arellano, emphasised that the Project was jointly worked with the Technological Institute of Sinaloa. «Connected Mexico Project needed a market and feasibility assessment, so we reached to the faculties of Accountability and Administration, Economy and Earth Sciences for help».

«We created another multidisciplinary group that helped us with the research and feasibility studies for the project. This is where the university participated and basically opened a new offer in the market for telecommunication and internet technologies within the state, to give the necessary means so the places where is plausible or not the connection can be visited», he explained.

 16 people participated at PIT-UAS’ facilities, 6 more were involved in the market study, and for the field survey 8 teams were assigned, each with 4 to 6 members (working temporarily). All was made with students support.

International projects

The level II researcher from the National System of Researchers (Sistema Nacional de Investigadores, SNI), Ildefonso León Monzón, at present time works in the Technological Innovation Park. He announced that on next July an agreement will be sign with German research centres.

«It will be an agreement with the Research German Centre in Berlin. We’re looking to establish a collaboration link with the Oldenburg University, in Germany, which stands out in the computational audition research subject», said.

Nowadays, PIT collaborates in the creation of a national network named Innovation and Knowledge Transfer Network (Red de Innovación y Transferencia del Conocimiento), in which participates universities such as the Autonomous University of Hidalgo, Quintana Roo, Tabasco, San Luis Potosí and Coahuila states.

Written by Janneth Aldecoa (CONACYT Informative Agency), translated by Belem Ruiz (Edition and Communication, PIT-UAS).