Ladies and Gentlemen
I am pleased to address a few brief words to you at this solemn event, which for the rest of your life will remain in the memory of many of you. The act of graduation represents the entrance to professional life (in the case of undergraduate students) or to a new stage of it (in the case of postgraduate students). That justifies the feeling of joy that we all perceive and the spirit of achievement that floats in the environment.

In this context, my main objective is to express my congratulations to the protagonists of the day, the male and female graduates. Congratulations for the perseverance, discipline, determination, courage and faith with which for several years they assumed the challenge of expanding the frontiers of their knowledge and progressively becoming better human beings. My congratulations are extended to the relatives and associates who provided support during the journey and to the professors who accompanied them in the process.

Today we put an end to a long sequence of days and nights of effort that we can be proud of. However, while recreating the past is natural on occasions like this, I prefer to fix my attention on the future in front of us. Each of you, male and female graduates, now has a long life ahead of you and the unrepeatable opportunity to use it to make memorable contributions. I hope that each one of you will take on this challenge with the same passion with which you have lived up to now and that the values ​​of our hive will be a driving force that guides your actions in that task.

I hope, for example, that the hands of international doctors contribute significantly to improving the health of so many people who today die from lack of clinical care. I trust that international engineers will help build homes for many who today lack a roof, and that international economists will contribute a grain of sand to the design of public policies that will narrow the gap between those who have and those who have not. And I am certain that scientists, mathematicians, psychologists, administrators and, finally, all INTEC graduates, whose graduation today we celebrate, will be key players tomorrow so that this country is placed at the height of its possibilities and that generations of the future live in a better world than the one we inhabit today.

The institution will remain attentive to the trajectory of each one of you, graduates and graduates, so that this act is not a farewell, but a see you later. At the same time, the hive hopes to continue counting on your support in its task of institutional growth. It is good to note that INTEC is currently experiencing a moment of dynamism that is perhaps unprecedented, as is clearly reflected in some of its most recent achievements. Just a few months ago INTEC obtained the first patent obtained by a Dominican university, and this year it is initiating the first two doctoral programs of a higher education institution in our country. Similarly, together with government entities, we have just now started a set of teacher training programs that will transform the pre-university education system.

On the other hand, the relationship with the productive sector is closer than ever, and we are increasingly successful in serving as a space for high-level academic debate that contributes to the identification and solution of social and economic problems of our nation. In sum, INTEC is today a university of consolidated prestige and we can modestly say that it has managed to fulfill its mission up to this moment. However, the best of INTEC is yet to come, and your support, now as graduates, is an essential variable in the equation.

In closing, let me now introduce our guest speaker. Dr. Julio Cesar Defilló is an Outstanding Graduate of INTEC, graduated Magna Cum Laude in 2003. After serving as a doctor in the country, he continued his studies and research work in different institutions in New York City, such as Lincoln Medical Center and in the Medical College Metropolitan Hospital Center. In 2010, he went to Yale University to study geriatrics and clinical education, and from that field he conceived and promoted an international rotation that later became a successful student mobility program between that prestigious university and INTEC.

Subsequently, he assumed the position of Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine and Geriatrics at the Alpert Medical School of Brown University and is currently Co-Director of the Ortho-Geriatrics Program of the Center for Elective Replacement of joints in high-risk patients.

Throughout his career, Dr. Defilló has obtained recognition for his participation in educational programs for the Latino community in Harlem, and in 2016 he was recognized with the “40 under 40” award, granted by the General Treasurer of the State of Rhode Island to 40 outstanding people under 40 years of age. In the educational field, he has been a Fellow of the Hartford and Reynolds Foundation for the investigation of new ways of teaching geriatric syndromes, and has made several publications on topics concerning elderly patients.

Please, ladies and gentlemen, let us welcome Dr. Julio Cesar Defillo with a strong postponement.