José Santana
Encyclopedia
José Manuel Santana Silvestre, is the Executive Director
of the Dominican Republic
Presidential Commission of Science and Technology and Research Associate
of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
. Santana was born in Santo Domingo
, capital of the Dominican Republic, and is an economist
specialist in technology and development.
Following Ex-President & Professor Juan Bosch
's recommendations, Santana moved to Costa Rica
where he finished high school
. He enrolled in the Social Science school at the University of Costa Rica
. He majored in Economics with a minor in Psychology
and Philosophy
, learning from Chile
an philosopher Professor Helio Gallardo
and Oscar Arias Sánchez, current President of Costa Rica
and the first Nobel Laureate from his nation. Already at a very young age he identified completely with the Central American human rights
movement. He became a humanitarian volunteer to help in Nicaragua
and a nationwide literacy
campaign.
He moved back to the Dominican Republic where he completed his Bachelor of Arts
in Economics at the Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo (INTEC) with a degree in economics. In 1997 he received a certification at the Technical University of Ilmenau (Erfurt, Germany) for his active participation in the ISWI program Building Our Future. This program was created by the University of Ilmenau in pursuit of answers to five fundamental thematic questions centered on globalization
: world inequality
, administration
for peace
, human rights
, technology and protection of the environment
.
In 2001 he completed a graduate program at Columbia University
in New York
on Executive Information Technology
Management. José Santana joined the staff of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at the end of 2003, he became a MIT research
affiliate.
In September of 2004, he was appointed by the President of the Dominican Republic, Leonel Fernández
, to take on the role of Executive Director of the International Advisory Commission of Science and Technology with the rank of Ambassador
and Special Advisor to the President. José Santana is an activist and visionary in the development of science and technology in developing countries
.
In 2005 he joined the One Laptop Per Child
initiative launched by Nicholas Negroponte
, Seymour Papert
, Alan Kay
, Walter Bender
, Mary Lou Jepsen
, Jim Gettys
at the MIT Media Lab
. OLPC is an education-technology project to put constructionist learning into practice by providing low cost laptops to every child in developing countries. OLPC is a non-profit organization set up to oversee the project. One Laptop per Child is being funded by a number of sponsor organizations including Google
, Red Hat
, AMD, Brightstar Corporation
, News Corporation
and Nortel Networks. Each company has donated two million dollars.
At MIT, José Santana developed a friendship with Professor Noam Chomsky
, who raised awareness of Social Science topics, particularly world peace
, human rights
, environmental
issues, political history and technology innovation for peace. They are currently devoting time to work on a
Latin America Political History.
In early 2006 Robert W. Rieber, Ray C. Dougherty
and Jose M. Santana established the International Foundation of Science & Technology (IFST) in Bergen County, New Jersey to promote the development and improvement of unprivileged communities around the world. The IFST support and endorse the implementation of projects and programs in the areas of science, technology and education as means to address the root causes poverty and inequality. This foundation works around the world to expand opportunities for unprivileged communities and to help ensure that the benefits of positive world development are equally shared.
Executive director
Executive director is a term sometimes applied to the chief executive officer or managing director of an organization, company, or corporation. It is widely used in North American non-profit organizations, though in recent decades many U.S. nonprofits have adopted the title "President/CEO"...
of the Dominican Republic
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic is a nation on the island of La Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are shared by two countries...
Presidential Commission of Science and Technology and Research Associate
Research associate
The title of research associate is used to denote an academic research position at a university or similar institution. A research associate usually conducts research under the supervision of a principal investigator. In contrast to a research assistant or research officer, a research associate...
of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
. Santana was born in Santo Domingo
Santo Domingo
Santo Domingo, known officially as Santo Domingo de Guzmán, is the capital and largest city in the Dominican Republic. Its metropolitan population was 2,084,852 in 2003, and estimated at 3,294,385 in 2010. The city is located on the Caribbean Sea, at the mouth of the Ozama River...
, capital of the Dominican Republic, and is an economist
Economics
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...
specialist in technology and development.
Following Ex-President & Professor Juan Bosch
Juan Bosch
Juan Emilio Bosch Gaviño was a politician, historian, short story writer, essayist, educator, and the first cleanly elected president of the Dominican Republic for a brief time in 1963. Previously, he had been the leader of the Dominican opposition in exile to the dictatorial regime of Rafael...
's recommendations, Santana moved to Costa Rica
Costa Rica
Costa Rica , officially the Republic of Costa Rica is a multilingual, multiethnic and multicultural country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Caribbean Sea to the east....
where he finished high school
High school
High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....
. He enrolled in the Social Science school at the University of Costa Rica
University of Costa Rica
The University of Costa Rica is a public university in the Republic of Costa Rica, in Central America. Its main campus, Ciudad Universitaria Rodrigo Facio, is located in San Pedro, in the province of San José. It is the oldest, largest, and most prestigious institution of higher learning in...
. He majored in Economics with a minor in Psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
and Philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
, learning from Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
an philosopher Professor Helio Gallardo
Helio Gallardo
Helio Gallardo Martínez is a Chilean Philosopher and Professor of the University of Costa Rica. He moved to Costa Rica after Salvador Allende was overthrown.-Books :* Mitos e ideología en el proceso político chileno. Heredia: EUNA, 1979....
and Oscar Arias Sánchez, current President of Costa Rica
Costa Rica
Costa Rica , officially the Republic of Costa Rica is a multilingual, multiethnic and multicultural country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Caribbean Sea to the east....
and the first Nobel Laureate from his nation. Already at a very young age he identified completely with the Central American human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
movement. He became a humanitarian volunteer to help in Nicaragua
Nicaragua
Nicaragua is the largest country in the Central American American isthmus, bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The country is situated between 11 and 14 degrees north of the Equator in the Northern Hemisphere, which places it entirely within the tropics. The Pacific Ocean...
and a nationwide literacy
Literacy
Literacy has traditionally been described as the ability to read for knowledge, write coherently and think critically about printed material.Literacy represents the lifelong, intellectual process of gaining meaning from print...
campaign.
He moved back to the Dominican Republic where he completed his Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
in Economics at the Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo (INTEC) with a degree in economics. In 1997 he received a certification at the Technical University of Ilmenau (Erfurt, Germany) for his active participation in the ISWI program Building Our Future. This program was created by the University of Ilmenau in pursuit of answers to five fundamental thematic questions centered on globalization
Globalization
Globalization refers to the increasingly global relationships of culture, people and economic activity. Most often, it refers to economics: the global distribution of the production of goods and services, through reduction of barriers to international trade such as tariffs, export fees, and import...
: world inequality
International inequality
International inequality is inequality between countries . Economic differences between rich and poor countries are considerable...
, administration
Public administration
Public Administration houses the implementation of government policy and an academic discipline that studies this implementation and that prepares civil servants for this work. As a "field of inquiry with a diverse scope" its "fundamental goal.....
for peace
Peace
Peace is a state of harmony characterized by the lack of violent conflict. Commonly understood as the absence of hostility, peace also suggests the existence of healthy or newly healed interpersonal or international relationships, prosperity in matters of social or economic welfare, the...
, human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
, technology and protection of the environment
Natural environment
The natural environment encompasses all living and non-living things occurring naturally on Earth or some region thereof. It is an environment that encompasses the interaction of all living species....
.
In 2001 he completed a graduate program at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
on Executive Information Technology
Information technology
Information technology is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications...
Management. José Santana joined the staff of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at the end of 2003, he became a MIT research
Research
Research can be defined as the scientific search for knowledge, or as any systematic investigation, to establish novel facts, solve new or existing problems, prove new ideas, or develop new theories, usually using a scientific method...
affiliate.
In September of 2004, he was appointed by the President of the Dominican Republic, Leonel Fernández
Leonel Fernández
Leonel Antonio Fernández Reyna is a Dominican lawyer, academic, and the current President of the Dominican Republic since 2004. He held the same office from 1996 to 2000...
, to take on the role of Executive Director of the International Advisory Commission of Science and Technology with the rank of Ambassador
Ambassador
An ambassador is the highest ranking diplomat who represents a nation and is usually accredited to a foreign sovereign or government, or to an international organization....
and Special Advisor to the President. José Santana is an activist and visionary in the development of science and technology in developing countries
Developing country
A developing country, also known as a less-developed country, is a nation with a low level of material well-being. Since no single definition of the term developing country is recognized internationally, the levels of development may vary widely within so-called developing countries...
.
In 2005 he joined the One Laptop Per Child
The Children's Machine
One Laptop per Child is a project supported by the Miami-based One Laptop per Child Association and the Cambridge-based OLPC Foundation , two U.S. non-profit organizations set up to oversee the creation of affordable educational devices for use in the developing world...
initiative launched by Nicholas Negroponte
Nicholas Negroponte
Nicholas Negroponte is an American architect best known as the founder and Chairman Emeritus of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab, and also known as the founder of the One Laptop per Child Association ....
, Seymour Papert
Seymour Papert
Seymour Papert is an MIT mathematician, computer scientist, and educator. He is one of the pioneers of artificial intelligence, as well as an inventor of the Logo programming language....
, Alan Kay
Alan Kay
Alan Curtis Kay is an American computer scientist, known for his early pioneering work on object-oriented programming and windowing graphical user interface design, and for coining the phrase, "The best way to predict the future is to invent it."He is the president of the Viewpoints Research...
, Walter Bender
Walter Bender
Walter Bender is technologist and researcher who has made important contributions in the field of electronic publishing, media, and technology for learning. Bender is on leave as a Senior Research Scientist at the MIT Media Lab which he led as executive director between 2000 and 2006...
, Mary Lou Jepsen
Mary Lou Jepsen
Mary Lou Jepsen is founder and CEO of Pixel Qi, a manufacturer of low-cost, low-power LCD screens for laptops. She was the first chief technology officer of One Laptop per Child .- Early life and education :...
, Jim Gettys
Jim Gettys
Jim Gettys is an American computer programmer at Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs, USA. Until January 2009, he was the Vice President of Software at the One Laptop per Child project, working on the software for the OLPC XO-1. He is one of the original developers of the X Window System at MIT and worked on...
at the MIT Media Lab
Media lab
Media lab is a term used for interdisciplinary organizations, collectives or spaces with the main focus on new media, digital culture and technology....
. OLPC is an education-technology project to put constructionist learning into practice by providing low cost laptops to every child in developing countries. OLPC is a non-profit organization set up to oversee the project. One Laptop per Child is being funded by a number of sponsor organizations including Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
, Red Hat
Red Hat
Red Hat, Inc. is an S&P 500 company in the free and open source software sector, and a major Linux distribution vendor. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina with satellite offices worldwide....
, AMD, Brightstar Corporation
Brightstar Corporation
Brightstar Corp, founded in 1997, is a U.S. based privately held corporation that provides logistical services and supply chain management within the wireless telecommunications industry. The company's headquarters is located in suburban unincorporated Miami-Dade County, Florida in Miami, Florida...
, News Corporation
News Corporation
News Corporation or News Corp. is an American multinational media conglomerate. It is the world's second-largest media conglomerate as of 2011 in terms of revenue, and the world's third largest in entertainment as of 2009, although the BBC remains the world's largest broadcaster...
and Nortel Networks. Each company has donated two million dollars.
At MIT, José Santana developed a friendship with Professor Noam Chomsky
Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and...
, who raised awareness of Social Science topics, particularly world peace
World peace
World Peace is an ideal of freedom, peace, and happiness among and within all nations and/or people. World peace is an idea of planetary non-violence by which nations willingly cooperate, either voluntarily or by virtue of a system of governance that prevents warfare. The term is sometimes used to...
, human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
, environmental
Environmentalism
Environmentalism is a broad philosophy, ideology and social movement regarding concerns for environmental conservation and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seeks to incorporate the concerns of non-human elements...
issues, political history and technology innovation for peace. They are currently devoting time to work on a
Latin America Political History.
In early 2006 Robert W. Rieber, Ray C. Dougherty
Ray C. Dougherty
Ray C. Dougherty is an American linguist and a member of the Arts and Science faculty at New York University. He received his bachelor's and master's degrees in engineering from Dartmouth College in the early 1960s and his Ph. D in linguistics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1968...
and Jose M. Santana established the International Foundation of Science & Technology (IFST) in Bergen County, New Jersey to promote the development and improvement of unprivileged communities around the world. The IFST support and endorse the implementation of projects and programs in the areas of science, technology and education as means to address the root causes poverty and inequality. This foundation works around the world to expand opportunities for unprivileged communities and to help ensure that the benefits of positive world development are equally shared.