José Santana

Infobox Person
name = José Manuel Santana Silvestre

|thumb
caption =
birth_date = birth date and age|1962|2|25
birth_place = Santo Domingo Dominican Republic
spouse = Isabel Matos de Santana (1984-2007) - Divorced
children = Three
occupation = Ambassador - Executive Director
website = [http://www.ciact.gov.do CIACT]
footnotes =

José Manuel Santana Silvestre, is the Executive Director of the Dominican Republic Presidential Commission of Science and Technology and Research Associate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Santana was born in Santo Domingo capital of the Dominican Republic, and is an economist specialist in technology and development.

Following Ex-President & Professor Juan Bosch's recommendations, Santana moved to Costa Rica where he finished high school. He enrolled in the Social Science school at the University of Costa Rica. He majored in Economics with a minor in Psychology and Philosophy, learning from Chilean philosopher Professor Helio Gallardo and Oscar Arias Sánchez, current President of Costa Rica and the first Nobel Laureate from his nation. Already at a very young age he identified completely with the Central American human rights movement. He became a humanitarian volunteer to help in Nicaragua and a nationwide literacy campaign.

He moved back to the Dominican Republic where he completed his Bachelor of Arts in Economics at the [http://www.intec.edu.do Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo] [http://www.intec.edu.do (INTEC)] with a degree in economics. In 1997 he received a certification at the University of Ilmenau (Erfurt, Germany) for his active participation in the ISWI program "Building Our Future". This program was created by the University of Ilmenau in pursuit of answers to five fundamental thematic questions centered on globalization: world inequality, administration for peace, human rights, technology and protection of the environment.

In 2001 he completed a graduate program at Columbia University in New York on Executive Information Technology Management. José Santana joined the staff of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at the end of 2003, he became a MIT research affiliate.

In September of 2004, he was appointed by the President of the Dominican Republic, Leonel Fernández, to take on the role of Executive Director of the International Advisory Commission of Science and Technology with the rank of Ambassador and Special Advisor to the President. José Santana is an activist and visionary in the development of science and technology in developing countries.

In 2005 he joined the One Laptop Per Child initiative launched by Nicholas Negroponte, Seymour Papert, Alan Kay, Walter Bender, Mary Lou Jepsen, Jim Gettys at the MIT Media Lab. OLPC is an education-technology project to put constructionist learning into practice by providing low cost laptops to every child in developing countries. OLPC is a non-profit organization set up to oversee the project. One Laptop per Child is being funded by a number of sponsor organizations including Google, Red Hat, AMD, Brightstar Corporation, News Corporation and Nortel Networks, each company has donated two million dollars.

At MIT, José Santana developed a friendship with Professor Noam Chomsky, who raised awareness of Social Science topics, particularly world peace, human rights, environmental issues, political history and technology innovation for peace. They are currently devoting time to work on aLatin America Political History.

In early 2006 Robert W. Rieber, Ray C. Dougherty and Jose M. Santana established the International Foundation of Science & Technology (IFST) in Bergen County, New Jersey to promote the development and improvement of unprivileged communities around the world. The IFST support and endorse the implementation of projects and programs in the areas of science, technology and education as means to address the root causes poverty and inequality. This foundation works around the world to expand opportunities for unprivileged communities and to help ensure that the benefits of positive world development are equally shared.

ee also

* [http://www.chomsky.info Noam Chomsky]
* List of Dominicans
* [http://www.presidencia.gov.do Presidency of the Dominican Republic website, in Spanish]
* International Commission of Science and Technology
* [http://www.media.mit.edu MIT Media Laboratory]
* [http://learning.media.mit.edu MIT Future of Learning Group]
* [http://ken.mit.edu/web MIT Auto-ID Laboratory]
* Jose Santana speech at Harvard Law School [http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/kssgorg/latino/agenda.htm]
* [http://elnuevodiario.com.do/app/article.aspx?id=54945]