Today, MIT Provost Martin Schmidt met with Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa, who came to MIT as part of a trip that will include visits to Harvard and Yale universities. Correa was accompanied by Ecuador’s minister of foreign affairs, Ricardo Patino; Ecuador’s ambassador to the United States, Nathalie Cely Suarez; and other senior Ecuadorian government officials.
Schmidt held a lunch for the Ecuadorian delegation and participants from MIT, who included Iqbal Dhaliwal, the deputy director of the Adbul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Laboratory (JPAL), as well as MIT Media Lab co-founder and former director Nicholas Negroponte and current Media Lab researchers. Schmidt and Correa held a discussion about the work of JPAL and the Media Lab.
After the lunch, the Ecuadorian delegation met with MIT Energy Initiative director Robert Armstrong to learn about energy research and education at MIT.