Lab Development

The costs of introducing computers in education are difficult to accomplish for most countries in Latin America. The costs involved in creating computer lab facilities have been estimated at US$50,000 in Brazil, without including the upgrading costs. This initiative has been created to provide a vehicle for performing research and development in a variety of informatics and telecommunications related areas. The laboratory facilities are also designed to be utilized in teaching situations, and are being used to enhance interaction between industries and universities.
Thus, this initiative improves the ability of technology to be applied to the resolution of problems in a variety of areas. At the present time, the laboratories that have been established throughout the region provide a common platform for sharing knowledge, exchange of information, and enhancement of curricula materials for undergraduate and graduate education. Among the educational boards and licenses provided through the R&D Initiative, ISTEC provides, through its program with industrial members Micro-controllers and microprocessors for effective control of a variety of systems, and digital signal processing systems for applications that manipulate the characteristics of signals or images, and Khoros Pro 2001 for Unix/Linux or Khoros Pro 2000/NT to design complex-computing routines efficiently, create solutions-focused applications manage complex multi-site software systems. For complex computing, it delivers robust and scalable technology to help business and government visualizes solutions, accelerates insight into complex data, and optimizes multi-platform and distributed computing.
The implementation of these laboratories has taken place throughout the eighteen countries in which the Consortium operates. Over twelve telecommunication-based facilities have also been installed in the region, and equipment has been made available to a number of institutions to create the first network of communication servers. The machines involved in this activity provide access to a variety of different types of information. For participating educational institutions, access is provided to state-of-the-art software, tools, and techniques. For companies and other organizations that require it, access is provided to talent and facilities located throughout the region. Moreover, for all participants, access is provided to technology indicators that can measure the success of educational programs and identify the areas in which growth is needed.