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Association for the Development of the Technological Institute, is a national and international consortium formed to participate with a comprehensive proposal for the management and development of the Chilean Institute of Clean Technologies (ITL, for its acronym in spanish) promoted by Corfo, as part of an agreement between the state entity and the company SQMSalar, which seeks to promote solar energy, sustainable mining and advanced lithium materials and other minerals, which represents a contribution of resources of approximately U$200MM in 10 years, becoming the largest R&D investment in the country in this subject.
For ASDIT, the Chilean Institute of Clean Technologies (ITL), which will be based in the Antofagasta Region, will have a high impact on the northern macro zone and on the country, integrating a global perspective and experience and promoting the articulation of an associative model based in the strengths of all its members and those that our country has in the mining and energy fields today.
At the regional level we have the association of the main companies (Industrial Association of Antofagasta, AIA for its acronym in spanish), the universities (Autonomous University, UA for its acronym in spanish and the Catholic University of the North, UCN for its acronym in spanish), guaranteeing the participation and coordination of all the necessary actors in the territory to develop, modernize and consolidate the value chains in mining and sustainable energy. In addition to the development of employment and the necessary support infrastructures for innovation, the region will offer the best local ecosystem to provide the professional and technical profiles that will be required in the short, medium and long term for the energy transition for Chile, through which bet this application.
At a national and international level, the main universities and research centers, Alta Ley and the most relevant companies are forming a consortium to achieve the challenges that Chile sets out to do: social development, sustainable mining and low emissions, strengthen the development of the energy sector and solar fuels and consolidate the hydrogen value chain.
For ASDIT, the Chilean Institute of Clean Technologies (ITL) will contribute to social development, sustainable and low-emission mining, strengthen the development of the energy sector and solar fuels and consolidate the hydrogen’s value chain.
With this global context, opportunities and unique assets, we form a vision, a dream that we can make real as a country, in the year 2030:Chile, as a world leader in green mining, which transformed its mining and strengthened its value chains to supply countries committed to climate change, helping to develop electromobility and competitive production of renewable energy in the world.
According to our vision, the ITL’s work to build up, energize and strengthen the innovation ecosystem will be essential to make Chile the leading enabler of the global sustainable economy, based on the production and export of minerals and green energy and competitive, technological development and knowledge.
ASDIT projects the vision of the Chilean Institute of Clean Technologies into the future:
ITL has contributed to the electromobility and sustainable energy production for the world, taking advantage of and strengthening the abilities of Chilean technological innovation, building value chains, supporting the development of interrelated strategic sectors that are promoted generating sustainable economic development in the country and impact on world level: sustainable mining of copper, lithium, molybdenum, cobalt and other elements, solar energy, the availability of water resources and green hydrogen as fuel.
ASDIT is committed to accelerating and consolidating a sustainable, decentralized innovation ecosystem located in the Atacama desert with a focus on the generation and the application of clean technologies that produce value both locally as well as nationally, contributing to social development, competitiveness, productive efficiency, the sophistication and diversification of products and services in the energy, mining and electromobility industries.
The Chilean Institute of Clean Technologies (ITL, for its acronym in spanish) promoted by ASDIT will have a governance model that will have an associative decision structures, in order to take into account the different visions of the entities that will make up the Institute and with which it is related, making sure of the neutrality of the organizations that are a part of it and permanently watching over the Institute’s own interests.
From this associative structures it’s expected to achieve agile and flexible governance with a clear balance between the different actors, where different interests can be raised, always ensuring that the Chilean Institute of Clean Technologies (ITL,for its acronym in spanish) is not captured by interest groups of any sort. For this, there will be a policy framework of ‘compliance’, resolution of conflict of interest and transparency. In order for this associative structures and participatory system to function efficiently, there will be decision-making models, in which conflicts of interest and resolution of differences and controversies will be addressed.
Therefore, for ASDIT, the ITL defines a Governance model that guarantees the participation of all relevant actors in decision-making, also a project identification, formulation and generation mechanism has been established that ensures maximum quality, impact and participation of the entities of the ecosystem. In this way, the portfolio of projects and initiatives that are launched through the ITL is generated, following the principles of over-subscription and competition (in the event of any challenge, key actors are invited to present proposals for action) and investment by companies, entities and the ITL itself.
Victor Perez is a Commercial Engineer from the University of Chile. He got a Masters in Business Administration at the Boston University, a Master of Finance from Imperial College London. He is a graduate in Venture Capital Fund Administration at the Adolfo Ibáñez University and a part-time professor of Strategic Marketing on the MBA in Mining at the University of Chile.
As of May 2019, he is director of companies (start-ups), consultant in technological innovation ventures in the mining and industrial sector. He is a director of the Aurus fund manager in the formation of the Aurus IV venture capital investment fund. In addition, he is a consultant for the Alta Ley public-private program in charge of implementing the technological roadmap for mining in Chile by 2040. Since February 2020, he is Executive Director of ASDIT.
For more than 20 years he worked at Codelco, in commercial areas, marketing and sustainability positions. The company assumed a leadership role to promote and develop markets for copper through start-ups and technologies with high added value and impact on copper demand. He has participated on the boards of the startups Ecosea Farming, Comotech, Scarab, IdeaBlast, Copper Andino; and of the technological and productive subsidiaries BioSigma, Codelco Lab, Codelco Tech, among others.
In terms of experience in entrepreneurship, he was the creator, General Manager and president of the board of Innovaciones en Cobre S.A. (called Codelco Lab) subsidiary of Codelco founded in 2006 and in charge of incubating technological and business ventures in the copper value chain. For more than 12 years, Codelco Lab directly supported more than 100 undertakings and startups in Chile and structured the first venture capital fund focused on technologies in the copper value chain in the world.
At the same time, since 2018 he was the director of Codelco Tech, Codelco’s mining technology subsidiary.
Since February 2020, he is Executive Director of ASDIT, an organization that groups national and international levels, the main universities and research centers, Alta Ley and the most relevant companies consortium to achieve the challenges that Chile sets out to do: social development, sustainable mining and with low emissions, strengthen the development of the energy sector and solar fuels and consolidate the hydrogen value chain.
ASDIT proposes to develop a sustainable innovation ecosystem that promotes the virtuous interaction between industry, academia, communities and the public sphere, to generate and apply clean technologies that produce local value and contribute to competitiveness, productive efficiency, sophistication and diversification of products and services in the energy, mining and electromobility industries.
The business model of the Chilean Institute of Clean Technologies (ITL) focuses on the creation, delivery and capture of value through knowledge, technology and innovation set on building a national challenge for Chile, moving forward in the next 10 years towards ‘Mining and Green Energy’ thus contributing to reducing emissions and achieving a model of sustainable development of mining, intertwining the value chains of the solar, hydrogen, water treatment and lithium fields, developing an integrated and sustainable hypersector both for internal development and as export products.
Accelerate and consolidate an ecosystem of innovation and entrepreneurship in solar energy, water resource
management, hydrogen, low-emission mining, energy storage, sustainable lithium production and advanced materials, linking academia and industry, through challenges of productivity and sustainability, and generate a global supply of green energy, along with the sophistication and diversification of products and services and the creation of new technological and productive businesses.
Design, implement, pilot and disseminate innovations and technological solutions, for extreme desert climates with the best
radiation in the world, with the participation of companies and national and international consortia that support the decarbonisation of the energy matrix, enhancing the competitiveness of the solar energy industry.
Create, validate, transfer and disseminate innovations and technological solutions for use in low-emission mining, improving the
sustainability and competitiveness of the industry and its regional and national impact, with green growth.
Generate, pilot, scale, transfer and disseminate technological innovations and solutions based on advanced lithium
and other mineral materials, enabling their use, improving the competitiveness of the national industry and promoting the electromobility, energy storage and green growth industry, generating value for the national economy based on the production chain.
Identify, implement, pilot and transfer clean technologies and methodologies to ensure and increase the availability of
water resources in rural, urban and industrial areas in a sustainable and efficient manner, ensuring that they are transferable to society and the market.
Implement pilots for the generation, storage, transport and consumption of green H2, at competitive costs, that allow
strengthening the use and applications of H2 and synthetic fuels with the focus on reducing emissions in the mining industry and making viable the creation of an industry in Chile capable to export $8 billion of green hydrogen to enhance electromobility and energy storage.
Identify and train the necessary human capital, in collaboration with the academic, union and industrial sectors, through
continuous improvement and training at various levels: technical, professional and postgraduate.
Provide, operate and coordinate the efficient use of the infrastructure platform, equipment and facilities of applied research
laboratories, test sites, industrial pilot plants and business incubators and accelerators, necessary for the operation and well functioning of the Institute.
Generate tools and mechanisms that ensure the honesty, integrity and transparency of the institute for the benefit of the
economic, social and environmental systems of the territory of Atacama and the country.
Promote the development of the northern mining regions through the development of ventures in the region, by local
actors and productive chains, generating a triple impact of the institute in the territories, in the economic, social and environmental spheres.
The location of the Chilean Institute of Clean Technologies (ITL) in the Antofagasta Region responds to a political-technical decision, its objective is to correctly execute the institute’s own technological businesses, and simultaneously become an instrument to promote the development of the northern mining regions. This objective responds to the development strategy itself that aims to promote economic and social development from mining and energy activity. It also arises from the perception contrasted by the data showing that the northern mining regions have the strategic challenge of achieving sustainable economic development.
In this context, the creation of the ITL poses a public policy challenge so that the benefits and added value of its projects contribute effectively to regional development. For ASDIT, the mere location of the ITL in the Antofagasta Region is not enough, it would be insufficient if it’s not integrated within the productive intertwining and the regional innovation system in order to generate procedures that allow the development of regional skills of small reions such as Calama, San Pedro de Atacama, Taltal, Mejillones, Tocopilla, María Elena and Sierra Gorda and the appropriation of part of the value generated by the institute as a means to achieve a form of sustainable development from mining and energy.
ASDIT is convinced that the ITL, as an articulator, can contribute significantly to increasing the entrepreneurial capacity of the territory, generating economic impact, not only in the mining and clean energy sectors, but in a broad range of dimensions, seeking to improve the economic diversification, social and environmental impact, thus contributing to making mining areas a better place to live, viable and equitable.
From this perspective, it will be understood that the ITL will contribute to the generation and capture of local value for the northern mining regions when it promotes the training and consolidation of capacities in said Region that allow its workers, companies and other social and economic organizations to develop and integrate into the value chains of the different technical areas of the ITL. This initiative promotes the following lines of action to promote local value.
For the ASDIT association, the Chilean Institute of Clean Technologies (ITL, for its acronym in spanish) its business model focuses on the creation, delivery and capture of value through knowledge, technology and innovation focused on building a national challenge for Chile, moving forward in the next 10 years towards ‘Mining and Green Energy’, thus contributing to reduce emissions and achieve a model of sustainable development of mining, intertwining the value chains of the solar, hydrogen and lithium fields.
The ITL framework of action is located in a complex hypersector, with interrelationships between different value chains, with different specific technological challenges, as well as common ones, with productive linkages in some cases existing (Mining, Solar), other incipient (Hydrogen), non-existent (lithium cells) and even transversal areas (water).
Its business model is based on an innovative proposal of:
Our ITL starts with the capacity of its partners and promoting entities, and that gives it the ability to generate projects and results from the first moment. It should be noted that its international partners promoting the proposal, CSIRO and Fraunhofer, and additionally the list of international institutions that are part of the consortium, the Technical University of Freiberg in Germany, NREL in the United States, Eurecat and Leitat in Spain, The Faraday Institution together with Imperial College of London from the United Kingdom, all of them will contribute in adding capacities, knowledge and infrastructures, contacts, suppliers and networks on a global scale that will allow progress in the internationalization of the Institute, in its initial stages, attracting innovation to the region and in the phase consolidation, exporting services and technology globally.
According to ASDIT, the ITL is defined as a ‘Business Federation’, which allows us to create a light, agile, resilient structure capable of adapting to the specific needs and characteristics of each value chain, ensuring interaction, synergies and cooperation, at the same time that it enhances the autonomy and entrepreneurial capacity of the people who are part of the ITL and of all the entities of the ecosystem (national and international) with whom we interact. This model requires greater responsibility to people, autonomy, without losing commitment to joint results / achievements.
The business model of our ITL proposal is evolving and maturing throughout the Stages, during the Start-up Phase (2020-2021), the goal is to consolidate the management model and the Intellectual and Industrial Property policies and Technology Transfer, that is, establish all the mechanisms, define the necessary processes to achieve the operating capacity in the entire service portfolio. During the next Operation stage (2022-2024) there will be enough income generated to ensure long-term economic sustainability and consolidate the ITL income model to allow the next stage of Consolidation (2026-2029) to be undertaken with internationalization skills.
A multitest integrating platform will be generated to support all projects. From said platform they will coordinate the exploitation of all the infrastructures that are developed in each Technological Program. Solar Energy, H2, Sustainable Mining, Water Treatment and Lithium – New Materials. As a top layer, as shown in the figure, a set of complementary services to the pilot infrastructures are positioned that allow optimizing and optimally design the use of laboratories, pilot plants, facilities and equipment. These are data services, modeling and simulating.
The strategy promoted by ITD from ASDIT is based on the experience of international centers such as Fraunhofer, CSIRO (in addition to other centers of international excellence) and has to do with the generation of an ecosystem, fostering collaborations and integrating as a further link in the industry value chain, in this case, as the reference ally for all innovation processes, especially to bring projects from TRL5 to reality and scale successes, helping to generate emerging sectors and transform existing companies, helping them absorb innovation and technology.
Our ITL proposal focuses on a hyper sector that, at a technology level, presents huge synergies, for mining to reduce its emissions, it has to change the energy matrix of its processes and for this it requires innovations and technology from the generation of renewable energy (Solar CSP and others), its storage and use (Hydrogen, Ammonia), make it feasible to generalize electromobility in mining (lithium and new materials), all within a context of optimization in the use and treatment of water. However, the companies that are involved in each of these areas are different, they have their own specific needs and require unique projects and infrastructures.
In this sense, to optimize the use of technological skills and build an efficient and effective model, the ITL has been designed with a basal coordination unit, from which technological services are managed and provided, and some Technological Programs that have a management highly focused on the specific value chain to which they provide services. These PTec function as business units with autonomy, to define projects in alliance with the industry, leverage resources to execute the necessary investments to develop their roadmap, without generating divergences, since all the PTec are coordinated from the basal services ITL.
ASDIT’s governance for decision-making regarding the project portfolio acts through a process associated with a funnel that allows a safe progress, avoiding that projects with prospects are eliminated from the process and can, once they are strengthened or correct their deficiencies with respect to the criteria not met, go to the next stage. The filters include the following criteria that must be met to enter the ITL.
1. The range of projects to select must be between TRL 5 to 8.
2. The projects must be aligned with the strategic nuclei of the Institute.
3. The projects must be aligned with the Institute’s technological programs.
4. Projects must be aligned to the needs of the industry, the region, the country and the global market.
5. Contribute to the resolution of technological gaps associated with the areas addressed by the Institute.
6. Support projects whose industrial technology developments deliver additional value to the region and the country.
7. Projects must have a social impact at the regional and/or country level.
8. Validate the scalability and regional, national and global impact of the proposed projects.
9. Validate that projects have a clear business model, with a market to impact of an adequate size for the project and an IRL (investment readiness levels)
10. Technology maturity time and diversification of the investment portfolio.
11. The projects are sustainable, (economic, social and environmentally). Alignment with the United Nations SDGs.
12. Verify that the team have the necessary skills, abilities, and experience to carry out the project.
13. Trajectory and complementarity of operation among project partners.
14. Compliance with IP policies and conflict of interest of the Institute.
14. Compliance with private co-financing requirements.
This processing of information regarding initiatives will allow ITL to count for each of the processes that require decision-making by the ASDIT board – such as investment decisions, training programs, entrepreneurship and open innovation, public policies, etc. – a reliable procedure that facilitates and ensures an informed, agile and efficient decision-making process by the Board of Directors.