Bolivia goes to the World Cup

Translated from Spanish.

A few months ago, I saw a beautiful movie, “Spare Parts” (2015, “The Robot Life”). The story revolves around a high school teacher who, tempted by a large technology company, receives a juicy job offer. Four Hispanic students in irregular migration situation appear, who ask for help to make a robot. The objective: to participate in a competition organized by a prestigious university. With a few dollars, a lot of talent and more than an internal fight, the team manages to assemble an underwater robot that must perform several tasks. The parents, skeptical at first, doubted the scope of the project, claiming the terrible phrase of “being realistic and understanding their place in society.” Indeed, when they arrive at the contest, the differences are abysmal: some have robots for thousands of dollars, our protagonists collected coins to buy the pieces in the neighborhood store. I’ll give you one more detail: it’s a real-life inspired film that includes Obama’s award-winning team.

This week we read the happy news of Bolivia’s great participation in the First Global Challenge, a world robotics championship in which four students from Chuquisaca and a mentor teacher represented our country with very good results. When inquiring in the reaches of First in its first.global web, it is evident that it has participants from all the continents, with different histories but a same objective: to program a robot with talent. I would also like to emphasize the Syrian team, whose members, as refugees and bypassing war and political conflicts, succeeded in participating. Precisely, this is learning. Beyond the technical, religious, national, gender or race, there is a powerful sense of humanity behind those who develop technology. I would like some suggestions.

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