IICA will award three tuition scholarships for the Digital Agri Master’s program at the University of Cordoba in Spain
Madrid, 29 June 2023 (IICA). The Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) will award three tuition scholarships this year to young professionals in Latin America and the Caribbean to pursue the Master’s program in Digital Transformation of the Agrifood and Foresty Sector (Digital Agri), offered by the University of Cordoba in Spain.
Interested candidates should first request admission to the program on the website of the Regional Government of Anadalusia (Spain) and then send an email to digitalagri@uco.es, from 6 to 10 July 2023, indicating their interest in and availability to pursue the specialization program, which will be delivered in face-to-face mode.
The pre-selection process and virtual interviews will be conducted during the second and third weeks of July and on 26 July, the results will be announced. Complete information on the process is available here.
This is the third consecutive year that IICA will be awarding these scholarships and the second time that it will be awarding three. Only one scholarship was awarded in the first year.
IICA Director General, Manuel Otero, remarked that, “In doing this for the third time, we are reaffirming our commitment to support agricultural innovation strategies and to promote specialized training for young professionals, whose knowledge will contribute to building a more competitive, resilient, sustainable and inclusive agriculture sector”.
The Master’s program includes a complete itinerary of face-to-face classes, blended activities, internships in established businesses in the sector and practicums at the campuses of the University.
For IICA, it is extremely important that scholarship recipients demonstrate a genuine commitment to development and increased agricultural digitalization in the Americas. Thus, in addition to completing the face-to-face program, the students will be required to prepare a final project that addresses a real need identified by their countries.
Tutors from the University of Cordoba and IICA will provide support for students in undertaking the project and projects will be considered as a public good for the benefit of the countries of the region.
Andrés Sanabria, a Costa Rican agricultural engineer with a specialization in Machine Learning, is a current beneficiary of the tuition scholarship. He remarked that, “I have seen the commitment and unwavering interest in providing students with the best education and continuous learning. I have also witnessed the impressive strides in digitalization in the agriculture and forestry sector, in which the program, along with companies and public entities, plays a significant role, while always ensuring the active involvement of students in this synergy of knowledge and collaboration”.
Course structure
The program consists of 12 modules and provides specialized and first-rate training in innovation, digitalization and technological surveillance, the Internet of Things, data and satellite image analysis, sensors in food production, soil, water and plants, Big Data and block chain, among other areas.
The 7-month Digital Agri program will offer a combination of face-to-face classes on Thursday and Friday afternoons, blended activities and a month of internships with companies and practicums at the Rabanales Campus – a 175-hectare farm in Cordoba, Spain.
The sixth edition of the post-graduate program will begin on 2 November 2023 and end on 11 May 2024.
More information:
-Find out more about the experience of current scholarship awardees: Andrés (Costa Rica), Leonel (Honduras) and Florencia (Argentina), here.
-Digital Agri Open Classroom Day (2022).