MARTEL forges tighter relationships in Mexico City

The MARTEL team visited Mexico City for the “Semana de DiplomaciaCientifica de la Unión Europea” (The Science Diplomatic Week organized by the European Union), where it represented FIWARE Mexico, SmartSDK, FI-NEXT and Orchestra Cities projects.

The Scientific Diplomatic Week was hosted in the stunning Museum of Modern Art in the heart of Mexico City, and was opened by the European Union Ambassador to Mexico, Klaus Rudischhauser, Director of the Conacyt Scientific Committee Martha Navarro, and Cristina Russo, Director or International Cooperation for Research & Innovation at the European Commission.

Dr. Cristina Russo highlighted the importance of the H2020 program, open to non-European countries in the international cooperation scene. She praised the relationship the relationship established with a network of 54 research and academic institutions in Mexico, and invited the scientific community to raise the bar and increase Mexican participantion in the H2020 projects.

FIWARE Mexico and SmartSDK, both H2020 projects, represent two examples of the EU-MEX cooperation in the deployment of ICT innovative solutions in Mexico and Central America.

Our FIWARE Mexico’s partners, Yolanda Ursa, Salma Yalife CUDI and Oscar Mayora, FBK went on stage with Neil Hernandez Gress, Director of Innovation at the Technológico de Monterrey and National Contact Point Conacyt-EU for ICT to discuss how the Mexico-EU ICT collaboration can be further expanded under the H2020 opportunities. Easier access points, more industry engagement, projects’ relevance for the society needs, and sustainable development were among the key topics brought up. Furthermore, Dr. Salma Jalife reminded of the importance of keeping research at the centre of the efforts, where funding is a tool, not an objective itself.

The FIWARE community in Mexico is rapidly expanding, with 41 research centres and 776 researchers involved. All this is thanks to the coordination, training and dissemination actions run by FIWARE Mexico and the pilot testbeds developed by SmartSDK in the area of health, security and smart cities. Infotec hosts the Mexican FIWARE Hub and Mexico represents a key node of FIWARE Mundus in Latin America.

The working group dedicated to opportunities of cooperation between the EU and Mexico saw FIWARE as the key ICT technology where the most progress has been made within the cooperation framework. Our Marketing and Communication Manager Margherita Trestini presented Orchestra Cities, the smart city solution developed by MARTEL Innovate, Therapaenis and Ubiwhere within the Select4Cities projectas an example of a viable, sustainable and scalable platform developed based on FIWARE open source technology.

The vibrant Mexican research and innovation ecosystem can actively contribute to the European ICT progress. The international research community represented at the Science and Diplomacy Week showcased interest and commercial opportunities within a vibrant business environment with ICT investment and double digit growth. The survey run by FIWARE Mexico in 2017 amongst the country’s key players saw several areas of common research interest, including smart cities, energy and smart industry.

The ICT Market in Mexico has been experiencing strong growth in recent years and Mexican ICT exports rank the country as the 5^th largest ICT exporter, behind China, US, South Korea and Japan. In Guadalajara State, 25,000 people are already employed with multinational ICT players, while the broad SME ecosystem could further benefit from international ICT cooperation to push forward the country’s digitalisation.

MARTEL Innovate keeps international standing at its DNA, and is honoured to have strong ties with the key research centres in the country and is already at work to further expand its areas of cooperation in the country.