The research project that will allow the development of this tool is the winner of a CEDIA grant and will be carried out in cooperation with ESPOL and Ikiam.

Three research projects from Yachay Tech University were the winners of a grant through the XIII CEPRA 2019 call of CEDIA. The three projects are carried out with the collaboration of national universities and seek to solve problems of the country. One of the projects is titled “Evaluation of the seasonal climate forecast for Ecuador”, and is directed by Luis Pineda, Ph.D., from the School of Earth Sciences, Energy and Environment. This project seeks to respond to a vacuum identified through a technological tool in collaboration with the National Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology (INAMHI in Spanish).

The project is carried out in collaboration with the School of Engineering in Earth Sciences of Escuela Politécnica del Litoral (ESPOL) and the Geosciences Engineering major of Ikiam. Due to this, the project has coverage in all regions of the country. The group of researchers seeks to develop a tool that will be used by the National Meteorological Service, so it is essential to cover all Ecuador’s regions.

In addition to the collaboration of external institutions, the project also has the collaboration of Francisco Hidrobo, Ph.D., a professor from the School of Mathematical and Computational Sciences of Yachay Tech. His collaboration is fundamental because the tool consists of a computational code that will optimize the processing of atmospheric information that INAMHI performs before publishing national weather information. This production of information is a processes chain that ranges from the capture of information to the processing and filtering of information, to finally make the transformation into useful and understandable information for citizens.

“There are many steps in that chain, there are many human, computational and technical resources that are invested” comments Luis Pineda, Ph.D. The aim of this tool is to optimize the use of these resources while presenting a functional and accurate tool. In this sense, the collaboration of the researchers of ESPOL and Ikiam is fundamental when carrying out the validation of this tool, due to the knowledge they have of their region conditions. The project will last one year, with possibilities of extension.

CEDIA’s call is open to many institutions throughout Ecuador, it does not exclusively involve universities, so it promotes a context of greater competitiveness. For Luis Pineda, Ph.D., the great response to this call demonstrates that the dynamics of research has changed a lot and is increasingly competitive, which is very positive for the development of the country.