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Building RedCiencia

00:00:14.29 This story starts at the bottom of the Earth, actually, at the end of America.
00:00:22.16 The Americas, in Chile, the southernmost country in the world.
00:00:30.10 But the people that are pushing this story forward are from Chile
00:00:36.05 but it actually started at the top of the world in England, in Europe.
00:00:40.29 Once a week, every Thursday, we got together with fellow scientists in a pub in England,
00:00:49.10 had some beers, and discussed about our future.
00:00:52.14 We did this regularly and usually we were having these questions:
00:00:59.03 What are you going to do to come back to Chile? Or what is your next place to do your postdoc, for example?
00:01:04.26 And those questions were always unanswerable. We didn't know where to go. We didn't know what to do.
00:01:10.12 And we didn't know what other fellow scientist friends were doing.
00:01:14.21 In that sense we decided okay, taking into account that the Facebook was around,
00:01:21.05 in England, at that time, why don't we create our own little Facebook for Spanish speaking scientists, especially Chilean scientists
00:01:28.25 to see where is everybody and what is everybody doing.
00:01:33.15 We created Bionexa, which was this little website. We funded it ourselves, and it actually took off quite quickly.
00:01:44.15 People from different countries, all Spanish speaking countries, used it
00:01:47.16 because it was a nice platform to collaborate, to exchange information about science careers really.
00:01:54.20 But as all startups go through the same problem, we were running out of money.
00:02:01.17 We needed to work harder, probably employ a couple of people, to actually keep this thing up and running,
00:02:07.15 and we approached Pablo Valenzuela, a famous entrepreneur, scientist that was also a professor here at UCSF.
00:02:16.29 He is Chilean. He has a research foundation, and he supported us more like an angel investor type of collaboration.
00:02:23.19 Fortunately, thanks to his help we were able to improve the site,
00:02:28.21 and the platform, and after a couple of months we received an unexpected email
00:02:33.21 from an editor of Nature, Nature Publishing Group,
00:02:36.23 saying, you know the editor-in-chief of this program called Nature Network
00:02:41.07 kind of would like to do a collaboration with you.
00:02:43.13 Basically we set up this collaboration and we actually signed a little document in the Chilean embassy in the UK.
00:02:51.17 Here is the Chilean ambassador to act as a witness of that transaction.
00:02:56.02 Of course, that made us really popular, but at the same time with all these benefits
00:03:02.08 or all this fame, we needed to improve a lot more on the platform
00:03:07.15 and we didn't have the money to make that step.
00:03:11.07 So I was able to persuade and basically get on board
00:03:18.09 the support of the Chilean Ministry of Science, or the equivalent of the Chilean Ministry of Science.
00:03:23.15 And at that time it was that lady, Vivian Heyl, who decided to buy the project really, sponsor it for a couple of years.
00:03:30.22 and that created what now is known as Redciencia,
00:03:36.02 which is the largest web-based Spanish speaking collaboration network online.
00:03:42.09 This is a screenshot of the site.
00:03:44.23 And as you can see here in that red box that is moving around, it has a lot of different functions and activities
00:03:52.20 that you can perform in the platform itself.
00:03:56.01 You can find jobs, look for grants, find people, have conversations, forums and so on.
00:04:02.18 We even have a radio station, a radio program.
00:04:06.11 So in brief the network is big.
00:04:10.02 It expanded all over the world, and in this graphic you can see the map of the world.
00:04:15.02 The colors of the different countries, and the darker the color means the more visits
00:04:20.00 and more usage you have from that country.
00:04:21.28 So we have presence in Asia, in Australia, even in Africa, South Africa,
00:04:28.00 in Europe, and of course in America.
00:04:30.10 The whole America, Central and South America. It is darker in Chile because that is where the largest user base is.
00:04:38.07 Those dots there represent ambassadors of the program that are actually living in those countries
00:04:43.18 and that they are working on behalf of this project, pushing the network even further there.
00:04:50.02 So we have come up with this Nature Network alliance,
00:04:54.08 and very good collaborative program with iBioSeminars, iBioMagazine.
00:04:59.14 That is why I am here, thank you very much for that.
00:05:01.10 And also we have been able to confirm over 950 collaborative interactions through the platform,
00:05:14.09 and over 6000 users, and that is growing really quickly.
00:05:17.15 So in essence the website offers you... it saves you time.
00:05:22.23 Really, it saves you time to get interesting information if you are a scientist, scientific information.
00:05:28.11 It saves you time to get access to funding or money, either through funding for your research.
00:05:35.02 There are a lot of grants that are published there,
00:05:37.21 international and national, and also you can find jobs, post for a job or post a job offer.
00:05:44.23 But we are not only working on that level.
00:05:50.03 The website and the social network, virtual social network, but we also have
00:05:54.18 a complementary parallel program of conferences where we meet once a year in order to make
00:06:02.09 the networking and helping people to meet each other
00:06:09.09 and basically come up with new ideas and new projects.
00:06:12.23 The website is already funded and works really well paid by the government,
00:06:17.21 and the conference programs run independently each year and it runs basically through the help of the sponsors.
00:06:25.24 This conferences started in 2006 with only 17 people,
00:06:30.17 and now over the past few years they have been growing quite dramatically.
00:06:34.03 Those are pictures of those events. You can see that the groups grow and grow and grow.
00:06:38.25 And for this year we are just about to start the last conference, this year's conference,
00:06:45.14 that will take place at the University of California, Berkeley,
00:06:47.24 and we are expecting around 300 people.
00:06:50.16 So over all the program has been really famous and very successful
00:06:57.10 probably a lot more famous in Spanish-speaking communities than in English-speaking places.
00:07:04.17 We have been in CNN.
00:07:06.08 We have got full spread coverage in different media outlets, magazine interviews.
00:07:11.17 A documentary was filmed last year on that.
00:07:14.09 And essentially all this energy and effort is now being recognized and we know that it is useful. It is working.
00:07:22.05 To finish off, the people that created this project now have set up a startup company,
00:07:30.13 so this is a very entrepreneurial spirit and culture around the people that are involved in this project.
00:07:36.02 This is a company called Grupo Aranex which is essentially an IT, scientific communications company
00:07:43.19 that knows about social networks and also about science.
00:07:48.11 And fortunately it got awarded a fairly well renowned prize back home in Chile
00:07:57.01 as one of the top 50 most creative business ideas.
00:08:01.23 So over all, the lesson is that you need to have a good vision,
00:08:07.10 and you need to have a lot of passion and energy,
00:08:10.24 and if you use information technologies well,
00:08:14.07 and you connect with a good group of people, you can actually reach whatever you want.
00:08:21.18 Even creating a small startup company or the largest network for scientific collaborations in Spanish.
00:08:27.23 So if we can do it, you also can do it.
00:08:29.21 Thank you.

This Talk
Speaker: Cristian Hernandez-Cuevas
Audience:
  • Researcher
Recorded: September 2012
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Talk Overview

Hernández-Cuevas relates the story of developing RedCiencia, the largest online collaborative network for Spanish-speaking scientists. From humble beginnings as the brainchild of Chilean students at the University of Cambridge, RedCiencia has grown to have users, collaborators and meetings around the globe.

Speaker Bio

Cristian Hernandez-Cuevas

Cristian Hernandez-Cuevas

Hernández-Cuevas continues to connect Spanish-speaking scientists around the world with his current networking venture, RedBionova. Hernández-Cuevas recently became the CEO of Andes Biotechnologies, based in Santiago, Chile, after spending a number of years as Director of Business Development for Fundación Ciencia para la Vida. Continue Reading

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