PASI Institute's Brainstorming

UDABOL
Cochabamba, Bolivia
Saturday, June 12, 2004

Agenda

1. Introduction
2. Panel Member’s Presentations
3. Comments and Questions
4. Closing

Panel Members

• M.S. Guillermo Güichal, Universidad Tecnológica Nacional, Facultad Regional

Bahía Blanca
• Dr. Hemchandra Shertude PhD., University of Hartford, USA
• Dr. James Conrad PhD., University of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA
• Dr. Orlando Hernandez, PhD., College of New Jersey, USA
• Dr. Hernando Garcia, PhD., Southern Illinois University, USA

Attendees

• All the participants of the PASI Institute

Moderator

• Dr. Marcelo Vera, Phd.

1. Introduction

Dr. Marcelo Vera, opened the meeting, thanking everyone’s presence and commenting on
the panel session agenda.

2. Panel Member’s Presentations

M.S. Guillermo Guillermo Güichal

e-mail: gguichal@ieee.org

I think this PASI is a great way to interact with other researchers and professors, and to
learn about topics we might not otherwise become involved with. Still, I feel most of the
interest is placed on our research projects and not so much in the possibilities of trying to
get our students more involved in applying the technologies we research.

The first question we need to ask ourselves is if we believe we should try to be doing
development in our countries. Personally, I believe we should, and as it has been said on
previous sessions, I believe by developing here we can help solve regional needs that are
not met by technologies coming from other places.

From my experience, many students tend to think that research is something that is only
done in the university labs, totally useless for going out on the job market. I've heard
many of my classmates saying things like: "well, companies don't do development here",
and forget about it. As professors in EE and Computer Science careers, I believe it is our
responsibility to somehow try to change that mindset. First of all, we should show our
students how research results are used throughout industry, be it locally or in other
places. We should help to close the loop between our research, how industry applies it
and how industry comes back to the universities and research labs with their needs.

We should foster the idea that these students are the ones that will have the power to
change this situation, nothing will magically just happen. If they are entrepreneurial they
might try to do something themselves. If they go into a non development job, they might
have the influence 10 or 15 years to help bring development within their organization to
our countries.

Dr. H Shertude, Ph.d, P.E.

“Fostering Cooperation between USA / Latin America”

Having spent almost twenty years in academia and then rest in Industry since getting my
Bachelor degree in EE, I have always tried to connect theory and practice. Having done a
lot of work for US Air Force, Navy and SPAWAR in multi target tracking using multiple
sensor in 1992. I decided to apply this experience to commercial applications. The first
opportunity came about in 1995. I have designed and fabricated in hardware a prototype
to detect and locate incipient failures in large electrical power transformers the system
was patented and now marketed throughout the world by Diagnostic Devices Inc. in
Simsbury, CT (www.diagnostic-devices.com). This thought process was then extended to
other applications like detecting and localizing failures in structures like Aircraft
Fuselage. Bridges and Petroleum Tanks. The final product was being manufactured is
CADSCAN (coronary artery diagnostics using signal characteristic analysis)

Dr. James Conrad

The specific question I am addressing is: “What can South American Universities do to
better prepare students for jobs, while also conducting research”.

The best thing to do is to give students real-world problems. I can best give an example
of something I recently did. I have been talking with local companies about their specific
problems. Small companies will gladly spend small sums of money in order to solve
their problems which are costing them money. These small companies are happy to
involve Universities . . . as long as they are assured that the problem will be solved. I
negotiated a contract which involves employing four students over the summer to write
decoding scripts, test plans and test cases, and to conduct testing. If we are successful,
the company will look to us to for more work.

The first work is nothing more than contracting/consulting. But success with this effort
could mean that they will ask us to solve more interesting problems. Future efforts can
even be more research-related.

Dr. Orlando Hernandez

My research experience comprises computer vision, image processing, dsp, computer
architecture, VLSI design, amount others. In addition, I have been involved in several
project related to rough terrain autonomous vehicle, voltage and frequency, optimization
for low power designs, advanced encryption standard (AES) acceleration module,
efficient digital signal processor (DSP) Core.
Some of the key ideas that we have to take in consideration are:
• There will be always a Market
• United Latin America Region to pursuit a much bigger and fair Market share
distribution
• Create Strategies alliances and Partnerships to save resources, capital investment,
etc.
• Team work and entrepreneurial spirit.

Dr. Hernando Garcia

From my professional experience, it is important to know how to solve problems
according to the national, local, situation. Some of the key issues that need to be
addressed for this panel discussion are:
• Formation of Strategic alliances with key companies.
• Importance of the Internet.
• Trends on critical technologies that are connecting the planet earth and affecting
local communities
• The state of the Optics industry

3. Comments and Questions

Comments:

PhD. Candidate Alonzo Vera (UNM – EECE, IVPCL lab)

I believe there are two aspects we should think about when we talk about research and
technology development in Latin America:
First of all, it is important to remember that a university by definition should be a place to
transmit knowledge and create knowledge. I believe universities in Latin America have
forgotten that and have limited themselves to transmit knowledge. We as professors must
change that.
Second of all, I believe companies in our countries still look at research and local system
development as a waist of money. We have to find the way to show that is not true.
Research and support for local development of technology is rewarding in terms of
money not only for the company or business, but also for our countries.
I think this workshop on rapid prototyping is key!! Although I’m bias due to my
background, I think one of the paths to follow is programmable logic. I believe our
universities haven’t understood its potential yet. Programmable logic is, I believe; the
easiest and cheapest way for our countries to start creating technology instead of
importing it from developed countries. We have the people; we have the skills, let’s use
it!!

Questions:

M.S. Guillermo Güichal formulated the following question:

My personal experience tells me that some technologies, such as FPGAs and the use of
HDLs, as well as new business models for intellectual property allows the design of fairly
sophisticated systems at a relatively low price compared to classical design
methodologies (Schematic, PCB, component selection and purchasing, etc).

Do the panel members believe these technologies and business models are a good way to
enable Latin America to provide high end solutions in the area of digital systems?

• Answer from Dr. H. Shertude

Per my experience with the Indian Technology and Education, it is easy to start at
some point in the cycle. Thus, it is easier to have a contact set up with the US and
Latin American counterparts and probably initiate the process for exchange of
technology to build and manufacture hardware like FPGA and CPLD. Thus after a
few years conditions in Latin America can come up to speed and become self
sufficient.

• Answer from Dr. James Conrad

From my experience, working at Sony Ericsson most embedded systems make today
are simply system integration. This involve putting together existing microprocessors,
memory chips, radio chips, etc. on a circuit board and then writing software to make
it all work. Therefore, I feel that software development is the biggest opportunity for
the lowest capital investment.

4. Closing

Dr. Marcelo Vera thanked the attendees and officially ended the panel.