Guadalajara’s Universidad del Valle de Atemajac (Univa) is among the latest 100,000 Strong in the Americas Innovation Fund grant beneficiaries sponsored by ExxonMobil Corporation.
In conjunction with the Metropolitan State University of Denver, Colorado, the grant will promote hemispheric collaboration through study abroad in “humanitarian engineering.”
Humanitarian engineering is research and design to directly improve the well-being of poor, marginalized or under-served communities, which often lack the means to address pressing problems.
Says a 100,000 Strong in the Americas press release: “Students from the U.S. and Mexico will work collaboratively on applied research projects, service-learning and cross-cultural activities that focus on research, design and application of new technology under the context of sustainable design to promote social justice.”
This is the third in four of Innovation Fund grant competitions supported by ExxonMobil. With a commitment in 2014 of US$1 million, ExxonMobil has facilitated 24 new higher education partnerships to date in Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Guyana.
The Univa is a private Catholic university based in Zapopan (also with smaller campuses in seven other Mexican states) catering to 5,820 university and 2,261 high school students.
The goal of 100,000 Strong in the Americas is to increase the annual number of U.S. students studying in Latin America and the Caribbean to 100,000, and bring 100,000 students to the United States by 2020.
The 100,000 Strong in the Americas Innovation Fund is a public-private sector collaboration between the U.S. Department of State, Partners of the Americas, and NAFSA (Association of International Educators), corporations, foundations, U.S. embassies and universities.
In 2015, together with its employees and retirees, ExxonMobil, its divisions and affiliates, and the ExxonMobil Foundation, provided US$268 million in contributions worldwide.