Yachay Ecuador: Research University Being Constructed

Miamiherald.com reported Ecuador is building a research university and city in the middle of a remote pasture. Can it succeed where others have failed?
URCUQUI, Ecuador — It’s the year 2043 and this burgeoning city of 100,000 is a high-tech Mecca. Using rare plants from the Amazon, university researchers have cured many diseases; factories churn out nano-sponges that soak up oil spills around the world; local software designers are the envy of Palo Alto. Ecuador — once known for its crude and bananas — is now the Silicon Valley of the tropics, the Singapore of the Andes.

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That’s the vision authorities see in the swirling dust kicked up by dozens of bulldozers and more than 2,000 construction workers at a remote site almost two hours from the capital.

It’s called Yachay, the City of Knowledge, and President Rafael Correa refers to it as the country’s Moon Shot — a $1.04 billion initiative to build a research university surrounded by labs, industrial parks and, ultimately, a city. Read Article