Speaking at a conference in Miami titled ? Using Technology to Improve Latin America,? former President Leonel Fernandez lauded his own administration for ?having pushed the DR into the 21st century in the digital era.? Fernandez told the gathering, which had assembled to see him receive the ?Business Leader of the Year? award from the magazine Latin Trade that he made special efforts to equip the nation?s schools with computers, to provide remote communities with Internet access and, in some cases, with video-conferencing equipment. As President, Fernandez said he had tried to connect the most backward areas with the most recent discoveries, in agriculture and medicine, by means of multi-media technology, so that remote and scattered communities could access all the riches of information available today. Fernandez expressed special satisfaction in the development of the ?Cybernetic Park,? near Santo Domingo, where hi-tech companies will produce technologically advanced equipment and where a new post-secondary school, the Las Americas Technology Institute, will prepare Latin America?s next generation of technologically sophisticated workers.
