MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Chile to become Microsoft regional centre

Microsoft announced Wednesday that Santiago's Universidad Catolica de Chile (UC) will be the headquarters for the new Federation of Latin-American Universities for Innovation.

The announcement was made by Craig Mundie, tipped to succeed Bill Gates as CEO in 2008, while attending Microsoft's 2007 Research Summit in Viña del Mar. With the new federation, the U.S. technology giant and some of the continent's most prestigious academic institutions will invest millions in "seed money" grants to innovative technological projects. Together with more than 180 company scientists and representatives from some of Latin America's premier universities, Mundie described the reach of the plan. First, 1 million US dollars will be invested in the federation itself. Then, over the next three years, 6 million will be invested in Chile as part of the number of activities designated under the "Bicentennial Plan". Mundie also said that around 200,000 US dollars has been invested by Microsoft as start-up money for the project emprendedores.net, and that there will be around 50,000 invested each year for government grants to the universities of Chile, UC, Federico Santa MarÃÃ…'a and DuocUC. Mundie also met with Economy Minister Alejandro Ferreiro and Chilean President Michelle Bachelet to talk about two related projects: the digitalization of numerous government functions and the digitalization of education, where the focus will be on the quality rather than the quantity of computers in the classroom.( The Santiago Times - )