Madam President of the Board of Regents, Ana María Ramos
Members of the Board of Regents,
Executives, teachers and collaborators of INTEC
Guest speaker, Sandra León Coto
Graduates and Graduates
Family and related
Ladies and Gentlemen

I have the honor to address you at the most important event of our institution. It is the activity in which we solemnly, but with evident enthusiasm, celebrate the transition of our students to professional life or to a new stage of it. My main mission is to congratulate the male and female graduates and express my respect for the family members and those related to them who supported them during the journey.

For obvious reasons, this is a decisive day in the trajectory of each one of them, because through the diploma that they will receive, it is publicly declared that they have knowledge, values ​​and attitudes that enable them to fully exercise a profession. In essence, male and female graduates will today receive a passport that allows them to enter a new terrain, hitherto unknown, and full of opportunities and hope.

This is also a momentous moment in the life of INTEC, which culminates in the celebration of its XNUMXth anniversary this October. It is surprising how this entity, which was born in a manger of limitations and precariousness, evolved to become the model of excellence for Dominican higher education. This was not the product of chance, but rather the result of the efforts of creative minds, obsessed with excellence and committed to innovation, which over four decades have been shaping a unique and perhaps unrepeatable entity. INTEC is today a mature institution, allowing us to rejoice in past achievements while demanding future contributions from us.

This is also a defining stage in the life of our country, which within the framework of a new National Development Strategy, is initiating the discussion of three great national pacts of enormous importance. The results of the ongoing negotiations (first in the tax field and, later, in the electrical and educational field) could largely determine the competitiveness of companies, the unemployment rate of workers, the quality of education for our young people, the sustainability of the environment and, ultimately, the living conditions of the population in the coming years.

It is of special importance that the discussion of the Fiscal Pact includes, but transcends, the simple leveling of fiscal accounts, so that while guaranteeing the provision of the necessary resources for the financial balance of the State, it also guarantees greater legitimacy of spending. and a greater contribution of it to the objectives of sustainable development. This means creating the conditions for a significant reduction in tax evasion and avoidance, and for tax incentives to be provided in correspondence with their contribution to productive investment and job creation. In short, let us take advantage of the discussion of the National Pacts for a change of course without which our country runs the risk of gradually becoming a socially unviable project.

In each of these areas, male and female graduates, you have a great share of responsibility. At the individual level, you are responsible for the effort necessary for a full and successful professional life. At the institutional level, your contribution to the Hive - now as graduates and graduates - is essential for INTEC to continue its work of excellence, and for other young people to have the life experience that you had. And in the social sphere, your contribution to the transformation process that Dominican society needs is expected.

To conclude, ladies and gentlemen, male and female graduates, I request your consent to present our guest speaker, Ms. Sandra León Coto, Rector of the National University (UNA) of Costa Rica. A Costa Rican national and a chemist by profession, Sandra has dedicated her professional life to research, teaching and university management. He started his professional career at a very young age, and for a long time he has taught in various careers, such as Forest Sciences, Agrarian Sciences, Veterinary Medicine and Biological Sciences, with a concentration in Marine and Tropical Biology.

For more than 25 years she has been a researcher in the area of ​​environmental chemistry, in particular marine chemistry and its applications in fisheries management in its interaction with hydrographic basins and its impact on the Maritime Terrestrial Zone. His academic work also includes various interdisciplinary projects on the management of municipal waste and the productive sector; physicochemical characterization of estuaries and the continental shelf of Central America with application to fisheries management; and contamination by organic matter, heavy metals and petroleum derivatives in the coastal zone of his country.

He has extensive academic production in recognized scientific journals, which in 1992 earned him recognition from the Ministry of Science and Technology of his country for his contribution in the scientific and technological field, and in 2002 he received the Honor of Merit from the Costa Rican College of Chemists.

At the National University (UNA) of Costa Rica she has served as Coordinator of the Marine Chemistry Laboratory, Director of the Extension Coordination Unit of the Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences, Research Coordinator of the Department of Chemistry, Dean of the Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences and Academic Vice Rector, until occupying the position of Rector by election. She is the tenth person to hold the Rectory of the National University and the third woman to reach this position in the history of the institution.

For all those reasons, I feel that we are all eager to hear the words of Dr. Sandra Leon Coto, whom I invite to this podium.