In the context of Rick Valenta’s visit to Chile, Director of Sustainable, we held a fruitful working meeting with officials from the Universidad del Desarrollo and the Center for Research in Technologies for Society (C+) of the UDD School of Engineering, an institution with which we have maintained a close relationship for several years.
Present at this meeting were Ernesto Silva Méndez, Vice-Rector; Fernando Rojas, Dean of the UDD School of Engineering; Camilo Rodríguez, Director of the C+ Center; and María José Morgado, Deputy Director of R&D&I.
SMI-ICE-Chile was represented by Rick Valenta, Doug Aitken, Executive Director, and Francisca Rivero, General Manager.
SMI-ICE-Chile has been working closely with the Center for Research in Technologies for Society (C+) of the UDD School of Engineering on various projects and initiatives related to innovation for sustainable mining.
“Both institutions have a fruitful relationship that we want to deepen even further,” said Doug Aitken. “We are currently collaborating on projects related to water efficiency, climate change, and studies of high Andean lagoons and salt flats, and we see many other opportunities where other schools at this university can join in and we can broaden the scope of collaboration. For example, we could make a greater contribution to issues of value recovery from mining liabilities, such as active and abandoned tailings, to the generation of value and social impact in mining territories, and to climate change mitigation and adaptation.”
At this event, the possibility of strengthening the use of UDD laboratories was also discussed, with the aim of furthering R&D work on mining processes. Also discussed was the possibility of using this university’s infrastructure for leadership training, and training in safety and risk management in the mining industry. The possibility of generating student exchanges between UDD and the University of Queensland was another important challenge opened by this meeting.
