Arkansas State University offers eight degree programs in Querétaro

Compiled by Mexico News Daily

Mexican university students will soon have the opportunity to study at a United States public university without crossing the border.
Arkansas State University (ASU) will open a campus on September 4 in the municipality of Colón, Querétaro, about 60 kilometers northeast of the state capital, Santiago de Querétaro.

Apart from education, administrative and sporting facilities, the 37-hectare campus also has student residences where all students will be required to live during their first year of study.

About US$75 million has been invested in the first phase of the new school but future expansion is planned as the university has a total of 150 hectares at the site.

The campus — described as the first U.S.-style campus in Mexico — will follow a U.S. education model with all classes given in English. The initial goal is to enroll between 300 and 500 students for the first academic year, an objective not far from being reached with 250 already enrolled.

Seventeen professors will teach during the first year, including 10 from the U.S. and four from Mexico. The other three are from Nicaragua and Iran.

“All of them are experts in their teaching area,” remarked rector Brad L. Rawlings.

Querétaro was chosen because of its climate, safety, economy and proximity to industries, such as automotive. The university plans to develop close links with industry and research institutions that are already established in the region.

Investors in the campus wanted to bring a U.S. standard of education to local students and found a suitable partner with the same goals in ASU, Rawlings stated.

Both Mexico’s Education Secretariat (SEP) and the Higher Learning Commission —an organization that accredits tertiary education institutes in the U.S. — will oversee the degrees offered at the campus and students will graduate with a qualification recognized by both countries.

Eight degree programs will initially be on offer: electrical engineering, biological sciences, business administration, mechanical engineering, biotechnology, international business, chemistry and strategic communication.

A post-graduate engineering administration degree and an MBA are expected to begin in 2018.

New degrees will likely focus on science and technology although there will be flexibility to respond to student demand and meet the needs of both Querétaro and Mexico, the rector said.

Students will also have the opportunity to complete an exchange at the university’s main campus in Jonesboro, Arkansas, although Rawlings stressed that all efforts are being made to replicate the U.S. college experience in Mexico.

“It’s like being at a university in the United States, but here in Mexico, with the same experience,” he said.

Tuition and fees for full-time enrollment for all degrees is 99,450 pesos (US $5,600) per semester while a room and meals cost an additional 10,990 pesos per month.

Source: Forbes México (sp)

Also about education in México:

Engineering student prolific inventor at 18

He has 171 inventions to his name, including an artificial intelligence device

Mexico has its very own budding Thomas Edison or Nikola Tesla in its midst.

Despite being just 18 years old, an engineering student at the Autonomous University of Nuevo León (UANL) already has 171 inventions to his name, including drones, pistons, combustion, electric and hybrid engines and even an artificial intelligence device.

José Armando López Martínez, currently in his fourth semester of a mechanical and electrical engineering degree at a Monterrey campus of the university, first started developing his own inventions while still a high school student.

Twenty-three of them have already made it to the latter stages of the patent application process of the Mexican Institute of Industrial Property (IMPI), meaning that they are likely to be officially registered soon.

One of his first inventions in his formative years while growing up in the Monterrey municipality of Guadalupe was a limited-slip differential that helped to cut down energy consumption.

Another was a temperature-controlled piston device that improves fuel efficiency in cars.

“Since I can remember I’ve always been very curious about electronic things and motors,” the young inventor remarked, adding, “I remember starting by taking a Nintendo 64 controller apart, changing the buttons around and putting it back to together.”

Pepe — as his friends call him — has also installed solar cells on a drone that allows it to stay airborne longer than any drones currently on the market.
However, the invention that perhaps stands out the most is an artificial intelligence device he created that goes by the name of Jarvis.

Pepe programmed the robot using the popular Python programming language, and it has the ability to respond to instructions in five different languages.
He talks to “her” frequently and goes as far as considering her a friend.

“I can strike up a conversation with her as though she were any other person. From any IP or LAN point she can be connected to the internet without needing a password. There is no need to decrypt anything,” José declared.

He is now planning to build a full body robot, putting his other inventions to one side for the time being so that he can focus on improving his abilities in programming and artificial intelligence.

Eventually, José’s dream is to work for Tesla, Inc., the innovative global company that is at the forefront of technological advances and manufactures electric cars in Silicon Valley.

That dream came one step closer to reality when representatives of the company visited Monterrey recently, heard about the prolific inventor and consequently granted him an interview.

“I’m in the selection phase with Tesla. They were looking for mechanical, manufacturing and automation engineers. They were surprised when I told them I had 171 patent applications,” José recalled.

The future looks bright for the young innovator and opportunities beyond Mexico’s borders are likely to beckon, although Guadalajara has also been developing as a technology hub over the past two decades.

Moisés Hinojosa, the former innovation head of the mechanical and electrical engineering faculty at UANL commented that José Armando’s abilities “leave all of us behind” and is certain that he will have success in his future endeavors.

“If he was in Silicon Valley or Boston companies and investors would [already] be chasing after him.”

Source: Milenio (sp)

There is some optimism after US document makes no mention of tariffs

Compiled by Mexico News Daily

Fears that a push from the United States to renegotiate the terms of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) would have a negative effect on Mexican exports and the economy in general might prove to be unfounded.

In fact, the Mexican Institute of Financial Executives (IMEF) believes that Mexico has won the first battle in looming trade talks with its northern neighbor after the U.S. government announced Monday that it would not seek to introduce protectionist measures such as tariffs or new quotas on industrial and agricultural goods entering the country.

The Office of the United States Trade Representative released an 18-page document entitled Summary of Objectives for the NAFTA Renegotiation in which it outlined its goals across a range of areas from digital trade to energy, the environment to investment and anti-corruption measures to currency, among others.
President of the national economic studies committee of the IMEF, Gabriel Casillas, explained that one of the main points for renegotiation from the U.S. perspective will be the rules of origin, which determine whether a particular product gets preferential treatment under the agreement depending on where it was made or produced.

However, some of the measures proposed will benefit not just the United States but Mexico and Canada as well, giving all three an advantage over competitors from other regions of the world.

“To update and strengthen the rules of origin, as necessary, to ensure that the benefits of NAFTA go to products genuinely made in the United States and North America,” is the objective as stated in the document.

No reference is made in the document to a desire to introduce tariffs on imports from either Canada or Mexico, news that is welcomed in Mexico.

“That there are no tariffs on the discussion table and a free market is maintained is a 50 percent win for Mexico. It’s probable that in the renegotiation process there will be bumps along the way but in the end it will arrive at a good place,” Casillas remarked.

There are currently more than 16,000 clauses in the 23-year-old agreement, each one dealing with a specific product.

Another objective is “to ensure that the rules of origin incentivize the sourcing of goods and materials from the United States and North America.”

Mechanisms already exist in the agreement that stipulate what percentage of the constituent parts of a product need to be sourced from the North American market in order for protectionist mechanisms not to apply, but the U.S. is seeking to make the rules stricter.

“If you want to make a car in Mexico and export it to the United States we need it to have at least 62.5 percent of its parts from the neighboring country so that it can pass free of tariffs. On this matter, they want to increase the origin content measures on some products for the benefit of the U.S.,” Casillas explained.

Objectives related to tackling corruption and making labor laws central to a renegotiated NAFTA are also outlined in the document.

Casillas conceded that introducing the changes in those areas might be complicated but that they are not necessarily bad for Mexico.

“They can be seen as a straitjacket to achieve good things, above all on corruption issues,” he said.

IMEF president Adriana Berrocal commented that it would be preferable for NAFTA renegotiations to conclude before Mexico’s presidential election and the United States midterms, both to be held in 2018.

“Both administrations are very conscious of that and are doing what is possible to meet [the requirements] on time. If for any reason it is delayed and it carries over to the next government, there’s not much to forecast now,” Berrocal remarked.

The United States has a trade deficit with Mexico that reached $63 billion last year and the stated objective to “reduce the trade deficit with the NAFTA countries” is seen as a priority for the U.S. in the upcoming talks.

Still, both members of the IMEF remain confident that an agreement that benefits all three members of NAFTA will be reached despite President Donald Trump’s occasional rhetoric and Twitter tirades that suggest otherwise.

A trade attorney and former counsel for international trade at the Economy Secretariat described the document as “very positive.”

“It deals with many of the fears of Mexican officials, particularly on going back to a tariff system . . . . It’s clear the U.S. does not want to move back to tariffs,” Carlos Véjar said in a report by the Financial Times.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer today announced that the first round of negotiations will be held Aug. 16-20 in Washington, D.C. He said John Melle, assistant trade representative for the western hemisphere, will be the U.S.’ chief negotiator.

Source: El Economista (sp), Financial Times (en).

Mexico: Left Wing López Obrador leads poll for 2018 presidential race

The National Regeneration Movement (MORENA), headed by presidential candidate Andres Manuel López Obrador, is leading the polls for the July 2018 elections, according to a survey released today.

MORENA, founded in 2014 by the 63-year-old politician who will run for the presidency for the third time, appears with 28 percent, followed by the right-wing National Action Party (PAN) with 23 percent, according to El Sol de México daily.

The ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) has 17 percent and a possible independent candidate got 10 percent.

According to the poll, 80 percent of respondents believe that PRI, which Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto belongs to, should not continue ruling the nation.

Peña Nieto has a low-level of popularity because many Mexicans believe he has failed in his crackdown on widespread corruption, as well as boosting the domestic economy after having pushed several reforms in important sectors of the country, the newspaper said.

In a simulated setting with potential top contenders, López Obrador had 31 percent, while Margarita Zavala, PAN candidate and wife of former President Felipe Calderon (2006-2012), scored 26 percent.

The current Secretary of Interior in the cabinet of Enrique Peña Nieto, Miguel Angel Osorio Chong, PRI candidate, had 15 percent and Miguel Angel Mancera, allegedly representing the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD), reached seven percent.