The first phase of the Mars Challenge 2023 took place with great success; the international meeting will be held in October.
Espiritu Santo University brought together 120 students to fulfill a mission: to create projects in 24 hours that make life on the red planet possible. This event, in hackathon format, is the first part of the Mars 2023 Challenge, an initiative of the Ibero-American organization Virtual Educa that seeks to promote the development of interdisciplinary solutions to address the challenges of living in another world and whose winners can obtain a stay at the Space Center in Houston, aerospace training and be ambassadors of Ecuador in the United States.
The proposals presented by participants from different careers ranged from mental health support robots to seed feeding systems. Finally, the winner was the RED GAIA group whose innovative idea was the creation of a system that reduces radiation in closed spaces based on radiotrophic fungi.
“We congratulate all the participants who during these two developed different projects to generate a habitat on Mars, all proposed very innovative and creative solutions in which their great effort and dedication was evident,” said Natalie Wong, dean of UEES.
The group of 10 students will represent the country in the international competition in October against universities such as Caribbean University of Puerto Rico, CES University of Colombia and UPAL of Peru.
«This experience has been unforgettable, the university encouraged us to explore beyond our limits and horizons,» said Michael Bonilla, civil engineering student and member of the winning team.
The jury in charge of evaluating the projects was made up of prominent professionals: Guillermo Proaño Suárez, manager of Enterprise Architecture at Claro Ecuador; Christian Merchán, architect and consultant at Kruger Corporation; Isabel Tamariz Mata, Zonal Director 5 of the Ministry of the Environment; José Antonio Hidalgo, coordinator of the Banana Cluster of Ecuador; Eliana Molina, Academic Vice Rector of the Espíritu Santo University; and Angelike Páez, director of quality and accreditation.
«Reto Marte has once again demonstrated the power of creativity, innovation and teamwork to address the challenges of inhabiting another world,» said Adelino Sousa, executive director of Virtual Educa. «The winning proposal, as well as that of all the participating teams, is a demonstration of the ability to think outside the box and seek interdisciplinary solutions that young people in Ecuador possess. The projects presented reflect a spirit of ingenuity and audacity, fundamental to face future challenges,» he added.
In this way, UEES boosts the creativity and ingenuity of young people by providing them with unique opportunities to develop innovative solutions to the challenges of today's world, as well as fostering interdisciplinarity and critical thinking.
