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Peru

In Peru, A Highway Billboard That Turns Wind Into Water

LIMA - You've seen highway billboards advertising some rest-stop or hotel: "Oasis, Next Exit." Now in Peru, there's a billboard that actually is itself something of an oasis.

The Technology and Engineering University of Peru has installed a billboard panel along the Panamericana Sur (PanAmerican highway) highway that generates 96 liters of drinkable water a day with a built-in humidity condenser.

Under the slogan “ingenuity in action”, the Lima university team designed the billboard and installed it on kilometer 89.5 of the Peruvian section of the major Latin American highway.

(UTEC'S video of the panel)

Alejandro Aponte, the project’s chief explains the inner workings of the panel: “Inside the panel are five machines that absorb environmental humidity and then, through an electronic multi-filtering system (activated carbon, antistatic filters and UV lamps), the water is purified and turned into a ready-to-drink source."

Aponte says each machine produces 28 liters of water every day, and needs a minimum humidity percentage of at least 70% in the environment, which is normal in Lima.

The water produced is available for anyone who wants to stop and take it. A storage tank holds the water that neighbors or spontaneous thirsty drivers stop by to collect -- or just have a drink.

“The concept of this project is to show people how technology and engineering can change the world," says Juan Donalisio, from the Mayo agency, which launched the campaign together with Humberto Polar and Aponte. "This is why I wanted to expose one of my applications live and in public. So it is tangible and useful for people."

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Migrant Lives

What's Driving More Venezuelans To Migrate To The U.S.

With dimmed hopes of a transition from the economic crisis and repressive regime of Nicolas Maduro, many Venezuelans increasingly see the United States, rather than Latin America, as the place to rebuild a life..

Photo of a family of Migrants from Venezuela crossing the Rio Grande between Mexico and the U.S. to surrender to the border patrol with the intention of requesting humanitarian asylum​

Migrants from Venezuela crossed the Rio Grande between Mexico and the U.S. to surrender to the border patrol with the intention of requesting humanitarian asylum.

Julio Borges

-Analysis-

Migration has too many elements to count. Beyond the matter of leaving your homeland, the process creates a gaping emptiness inside the migrant — and outside, in their lives. If forced upon someone, it can cause psychological and anthropological harm, as it involves the destruction of roots. That's in fact the case of millions of Venezuelans who have left their country without plans for the future or pleasurable intentions.

Their experience is comparable to paddling desperately in shark-infested waters. As many Mexicans will concur, it is one thing to take a plane, and another to pay a coyote to smuggle you to some place 'safe.'

Venezuela's mass emigration of recent years has evolved in time. Initially, it was the middle and upper classes and especially their youth, migrating to escape the socialist regime's socio-political and economic policies. Evidently, they sought countries with better work, study and business opportunities like the United States, Panama or Spain. The process intensified after 2017 when the regime's erosion of democratic structures and unrelenting economic vandalism were harming all Venezuelans.

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