We have learned many things from the Island:
1) Wishful
thinking is not enough.
2)
Learning to sweat never finishes.
3) Working
toward the goal never finishes.
4) Facing
reality is inevitable, the sooner the better for someone.
5) Productivity
needs to be present at one point in our lives.
I had a taste of Cuba when working
at the University of Geneva (IUPG), where I met Cubans who were selling a
useful software called Neurotechnology.
I had the opportunity to test the software and I found it very useful. I met Guido Diaz and Mitchell Valdés. Guido was the worker behind the project.
Mitchell represented the government, stubborn, self-centered, fluently speaking
in English to the Swiss; he looked like Díaz-Canel speaking after the current
revolt. Mitchell was the one selling,
but he just had one product. He came to
Switzerland from Havana to sell the software.
He stayed to speak with Jean Michel Gaillard (my boss, already deceased)
two days and left.
Doctor in Medicine, PhD in Physiologic Sciences, Senior Researcher.
Member of the Cuban Society of Neurosciences, Member of the Cuban Society of
Physiology, Member of the International Organization for Psycho-Physiology,
Member of the Caribbean Organization for Brain Research, Member of the North
American Society of Cognitive Neurosciences. Working Specialty: Cognitive Neurosciences.
The Swiss wanted to buy the
software because it was at least three times cheaper than the others in the
market. They had four softwares to test
and to choose from. The Neurotechnology software
advantages were multiple: easy to use, Neurotechnology had a data base to
compare to normal Cuban subjects (but we had limited access to row data and the
Swiss believed the data was not statistically significant to compare with: very
few subjects), complicated measures were possible at one touch. The disadvantages were: limited maintenance because
just a very few Cubans were prepared to do so and they had to have freedom to
move around; limited access to use the data freely (we could not take pieces of
the EEG independently of the software) and we were in a research lab. We tested the software excessively because
the full data was not available to us.
I spent time with Guido and
learned more about Cuba. It was a few
years after the falling of the Soviet Union.
I used to invite the team to eat in the cafeteria, five of them. Guido said that they were a hundred people working
in the project but the five of them were doing the whole job. They did not accept
to come to my place for dinner. One time,
Guido called me from Cuba and ask me if I could send him a bunch of articles
because they did not have them in Cuba, they were close to 100. I asked the Secretary to send them by fax as
Guido said! I used to call Guido, but
the communication faded and I found out he left the island for Venezuela for
good in 1995. Good luck Guido if you
read me!
A few years later, I presented
in Havana a research done at the lab in Switzerland, using the Cuban software. I did not see Mitchell or Guido there. Guido told me that the research using
medications and measuring with the software developed by them was not possible
because they did not have medications to do it.
Balancing freedom and
equality is the key in any system.
Voicing corruption and other related problems is the beginning, but
solving the problem, is another thing.
In Latin America we are very good at voicing, but we come very short at
solving; Cuba, Venezuela and now Mexico are the examples. Our Federations in any sport have the same
problem in Mexico. Our triathlon
federation controls the athletes as the Cuban government controls the citizens,
we even have had an embargo on us, but we managed to have the only triathlon world
champion of Mexico. I leave you with
this beautiful analysis done by Claudia Hilb on Cuba:
Valdés speaking on microwaves cooking the brain:
