Welcoming Remarks – Luis-Felipe Arizmendi

Felipe Pait: Don’t you feel good? You see how well endorsed this area is. Finally I’d like to call on Luis Felipe Arizmendi. If he’s … Oh, here he is. Great. He is on the board of directors of university that actually bears Norbert Wiener’s name. It’s called The University of Norbert Wiener and it’s in Peru and so we’ll call on you to make a few [inaudible 00:00:28].

Luis-Felipe Arizmendi: Thank you. Fortunately I’m getting older and hopefully wiser so I need not to wear glasses now after all my life wearing glasses. Dear Dr. Stacker, Dr. Winston, Dr. Adamson, Dr. [Crionavish 00:01:00]. Dear keynote speakers, Dr. Pickering, Dr. Bateson. Dear participants in this 2014 conference on Norbert Wiener in the 21st Century.
It is a great honour for me and the institution I represent to be today at this conference. The Universidad Norbert Wiener is a still a quite young university. Created in 1996 by initiative of it’s founder Dr. Alcibiades Horna who is with us today with his wife Flor, his son Enrique and his daughter Flor. This is now an educational institution with near 8 thousand students in Peru. It’s a metropolitan university located downtown Lima. And it’s inspired in the legacy of professor Norbert Wiener as you all know.

It is interesting to mention how Dr. Horna took the name of Norbert Wiener for the university he was establishing then. 40 years ago, Dr. Horna, a medical doctor in Peru, created Instituto Superior Technologico Carrion. A similar institution to what in the United States is a Technical or vocational college. Basically in order to educate and train young Peruvians in health and medicine related vocational careers. Due to the shortage of well qualified personnel that may helped medical doctors in a very difficult environment as Peru 40 or 50 years ago.

With that experience he discovered a revolution that computerized medical equipment thus creating a medical treatment and diagnoses. He was wondering, “Who was the individual that had started all this?” After years attending many conference he found a name and works of Norbert Wiener. After that, after realizing the importance of Norbert Wiener for health and technology together, he commit himself in order to establish a university on behalf of this important person.
That’s the reason why he decided to use that name and to follow the path of the legacy of Norbert Wiener. Today, the University offers true [inaudible 00:03:05] schools, offer major such as nursing, obstetrics, dental medicine, psychology, human nutrition, medical technology, pharmacy and biochemistry, industrial engineering, computer system and cybernet engineering, management and law.

As a university that is very affordable, the average tuition is no more that 2 thousand dollars a year with more than 25 percent of people with a scholarship, full scholarship at the University. This is still a young university but it’s open to all of you and we wish to establish any kind of relationship you want to establish with us. In order to collaborate and to cooperate and to continue with the legacy of Norbert Wiener. Thanks a lot.