Through different activities for the entire university community and the people living around its campuses and branches, the University has actively participated in the construction of solutions towards a fairer country. Since October, 18th, the world has been a witness of the serious social crisis Chile is going through. In many cities, through multitudinous protests to reclaim a set of social demands and problems, the people has expressed their dissatisfaction and unrest accumulated over decades. In this context, the Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María, in accordance with its public vocation, assumed the challenge of taking an active role in the search for solutions that allow to build a new social pact through a series of activities aimed at the reflection, dialogue and civic education of the students and the community living around its different branches. The response to these meetings was very positive since the 104 meetings, and more than 20 forums, talks, seminars and workshops were attended by more than 5,000 participants, and more than 200 thousand people through the different digital platforms of the Institution. The first activity was a reflection process called by the academic units of the USM, that in an atmosphere of total tranquility, analyzed the situation of the country, and defined the priority issues for generating conferences and discussion spaces which, in turn, would contribute to a better understanding of these issues. Fernanda Apablaza, a third-year student of the Engineering in Product Design program says: “It is very important to have these spaces where we can express, without fear, what we think, to understand each other, to feed our thinking and to generate a more global idea from the points in common with other people”.
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