In that sense, Elliane Elbaum, General Manager of the Innovation Laboratory Artificial intelligence of Microsoft, He recounted the experience of this project installed by the international company software within the framework of the campus of Uruguay Innovation Hub, which seeks to ensure that all types of companies have access to AI projects with sustainable characteristics.
“It is one of the three open laboratories worldwide. The owner of the laboratory is Uruguay and is operated by Uruguayans. That is something innovative in its management model and in its business model. Beyond that, the mission is to accelerate the incorporation of artificial intelligence by companies, by the private sector. And why a laboratory? Because it allows for experiments at low costs,” the expert explained.
“What we do is that companies apply on a website, it’s super simple. It’s open to all companies. The barrier is low in the sense that you don’t need to be a super company. We’ve had all kinds of companies: lawyers, notaries, fintechs, “everything,” Elbaum said.
And he explained: “They apply, we sign a document because we understand the treatment of data as something very important and an issue that will be and is key for the Uruguay of today and the future. And then, we work with companies in person in the laboratory, teaching them how to use the services of Azure, which is the Microsoft cloud, to accelerate artificial intelligence processes. That is, companies come with an idea and leave with a prototype already installed in their Microsoft cloud.”
Sustainable school
Another experience presented at the event was the one linked to the sustainable school, which operates in the town of Jaureguiberry, department of Cannelloni.
“It started in 2012 with the theory of what would happen if we built a sustainable public school, what changes it could cause and what could change in the consciousness of a child growing up in direct contact with the resources that make the habitat possible: water, energy, food, being comfortable inside a building, waste, etc.” And the truth is that the child is better prepared,” said its head. Martin Esposito.
Montevideo, a sustainable city?
Finally, the president of the Chamber of Construction and owner of the company Saceem, Alejandro Ruibal, He established the concept of a sustainable city with its main definitions and placed it there Montevideo. The businessman began with a historical context. “It is in cities that humanity has developed. All technological advances, science, art, everything is produced in cities,” he stressed.
He then stated that due to development “cities began to make us sick, they increased in scale, they went beyond the logical variable of management, we began to consume resources and with the consumer society to exhaust them, and that is where the concept of sustainability, which means creating an organization so that it can be a city that ultimately does not consume all the resources for the present and put them at risk or exhaust them,” he mentioned.
In this sense, he assumed the responsibility that would correspond to the industry of the construction, but he proposed some measures. “Construction works generate a lot of waste, it is the waste from civil works. There is a lot of this waste that can be used. In many parts of the world, secondary industries are generated with construction waste. In Uruguay The regulations have yet to be completed. Ministry of Environment is working on it,” he said.
Along the same lines, Ruibal also addressed the issue related to the mobility and the sustainable transport in large cities, and introduced a surprising definition of the role that Montevideo could play in the region.
“I cannot conceive of a city that does not address the issue of mobility. We have to discuss transport, which is a major consumer and generator of greenhouse gases. Sustainable mobility, with electric or hydrogen transport, a combination of a modern mode of transport, electric-hydrogen, with bicycles, is essential,” he said.
“Montevideo still has lungs, squares and places that need to be taken care of or increased or enlarged. Then, we also need to take care of the distribution of inhabitants in the city. A city cannot afford to have neighborhoods left empty and others filled, people leaving to live outside the city, and the center being completely empty, because it is uneconomical. We have all the services installed: energy, water, sanitation, everything for the center of the city, and we are all going to live outside. All these services need to be developed,” he added.
In this regard, the president of the Chamber of Construction concluded: “Montevideo could perfectly be a city, the center of Montevideo, the Old City, with this concept of sustainability and greatly improve the positioning on the continent. Montevideo, for me, should be the university city of South America”.
The Medellin experience
The architect also participated in the event as an exhibitor via Zoom Gustavo Restrepo, in charge of carrying out the restructuring project of Commune 13 of Medellin, which is based on the thesis “better citizens, better cities”.
This work has allowed us to recover one of the most dangerous areas of this Colombian city from the perspective of coexistence, but also of urban development.
Source: Ambito
