Echedey Aguilar Hernández (Tiagua, Lanzarote) has spent the last two months of his life living in Havana, the capital of Cuba, as part of a pioneering research project. Recently graduated in Computer Engineering from the University of Seville, this 23-year-old from Lanzarote landed in the Caribbean country to develop an international cooperation initiative to study Cuban biodiversity.
This Lanzarote native has been working for a year as a researcher at the University of Seville, where he is carrying out a green hydrogen project.
Aguilar and his colleague Claudia Trancón Jiménez from Huelva landed in the Cuban capital in July and returned to Spain the day before giving an interview to La Voz, last Tuesday. During their stay in the country, they developed the project Valorization of biodiversity in the municipality of Boyeros (Cuba) through the use of IoT and AI technologies: OPTES.
Although the name of the project may seem cumbersome at first, the work of both engineers has been to capture the sounds emitted by birds and analyze the level of biodiversity in a specific space, using "mini computers" and a portable battery to avoid the constant blackouts that plague Cuba.
The research was carried out in the municipality of Boyeros, one of the 15 that make up Havana, which houses part of nature and also part of the urban area. Specifically, in this city, construction is displacing birds to more natural areas.
To maximize the results, the researchers, guided by professors Julio Barbacho Concejero and Natalia Moreno Naranjo, both from Spain, and the Cuban professor from the CUJAE University of Havana, Juan Carlos Cruz, made use of a program implemented with artificial intelligence that allows determining the name of each bird based on the sound it emits.
In addition, to measure the biodiversity indices in the space to be analyzed, they received support from biologists from the University of Valencia.
Before leaving the country, they gave workshops to Master's students, which is the equivalent of Master's studies in Spain, to explain how the devices work, how to install them, and how to use artificial intelligence to continue with the initiative when they leave the country.
A research grant
Despite the fact that the time Echedey Aguilar and Claudia Trancón spent in Havana was not paid, they received a research grant that allowed them to cover their stay, food, and tickets. To be able to spend the summer in the country, they rented a house in the town of Viñales for foreign currency, from a man who turned out to be an ornithologist.
"Many tourists go and almost go with their eyes closed, with predetermined routes and do not see the reality," adds Aguilar, who explains that during his stay in Havana he observed that there is "a lot of need," in reference to the lack of resources in areas such as health or food.
At the same time, he points out that during the summer months the university was sealed off and that the study's common sessions were held at the professor's house. "The professors work until very old ages because the salary of a professor is super low compared to those here," he adds.
For the moment, his return to Spain does not mean that he will move away from the project and he is considering traveling back to the Cuban capital next year.