MY Camper Jorge Araya: Towards fair water consumption
18-year-old MY Camper Jorge Araya’s project is about making water use more efficient in developing countries.
Jorge is originally from Costa Rica, and has been living in six different countries, but has since returned to his home country until he will begin biomedical engineering studies at the Harvard University later this year.
Jorge discovered Millennium Youth Camp by mere accident.
“I was taking a book out of my school library when the librarian asked me if I would like to go to Finland. I was very surprised, and asked her what she meant, and she described MY Camp to me, sent me the link to the website, and told me I should give it a chance.”
He read a bit more about the program, and noticed that the camp combined two of his greatest interests, science and travel.
Jorge expects to make new friends during the camp, and is very enthusiastic about participating in the Millennium Technology Prize award ceremony. Above all he hopes to learn new things from his own Water group as well as from other groups.
“I have no background at all in IT so I am curious to see the presentation of the ICT group, what their task was and how they solved it.”
Jorge’s project is about making water use in the developing world more efficient through using agricultural techniques that reduce water waste, mainly through drip agriculture and genetically modified crops.
“Often these methods are very expensive, so they are not used, but if aid is provided for their implementation they can have a huge impact, especially considering that 70% of the water used in the world goes to agriculture!”
Jorge came up with the idea for the project when he discovered that even though the Guanacaste region in Costa Rica has suffered from drought in recent years, large hotel chains still find the water necessary to keep their golf courses green while crops fail. The whole scenario is unfair to local people, and Jorge began to study it.
“I realized that if the water that already goes to agriculture was used more effectively, then crop yields could be increased.”
The importance of science is, according to Jorge, in understanding how the world works. He also values sustainability.
On his spare time Jorge likes to travel. He plays soccer, and has studied classical guitar, even though he prefers Beatles over Beethoven. Also reading is his passion:
“I read a lot about the history of science. It seems amazing to me that humanity has come to know so much about the universe, starting from absolutely nothing, and using only the power of the mind.”
Link: Millennium Youth Camp
Document: Jorge´s plan for MY Camp (pdf)
Elisa Lautala works as web editor for University of Helsinki's Faculty of Science. Elisa likes all kinds of cultural events, good books, warm weather, and aqua-jogging.