Good morning, I am Mario Hernández, located in Río Blanco, Veracruz, where I pursue one of my biggest dreams: creating a sustainable ranch by combining ecotechnologies with education and, at the same time, generating ecotourism to empower locals through workshops and, not far off, providing them with employment. Some call it a biopark, others an ecopark; we call it Technochtitlan Biopark.

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I was born as the oldest of four siblings in La Cruz de Elota, Sinaloa, a small town in northern Mexico. My father was a veterinarian. You might imagine that, with this type of profession, he probably became a wealthy man. False! Most of the time, since the farmers and ranchers in our area were quite humble, my father was often not paid in cash but received eggs, milk, and meat for his services. Sometimes, payment was received on the same day of services, but most of the time, several months later.

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This payment method gave me my first significant idea about how life could be lived. My father receiving food instead of money, something like bartering, where both parties were content – my father for helping and the grateful farmer or rancher for sharing what he had for the assistance received, created an instant friendship. I remember those farmers visiting my family's home many times after my father offered his services, just to give extra food to our family; that was genuine human gratitude.

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The second significant life experience occurred when I was in high school. Often, my friends came to my house to play baseball or soccer and also to do homework since many working parents were not at home in the hours after school. My classmates often asked my father about their studies. Despite my father scolding them, they seemed to prefer continuing that study time with him as a guide rather than returning to play sports with me. The lesson for me was that those high school friends did not have someone to guide or help them with their studies, so I realized that a mentor was needed for a better future.

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I also remember one Saturday in a local park where we often went to sell our honey since my father was a beekeeper in his spare time. Unfortunately, we broke one of the bottles, and it was a total disaster. My sister and I were about eight years old at that time. I told my sister not to say anything, but on the way home, she still talked about the accident. When we got home, we were sent back to the park to clean up the mess we had made in a public place. This was just one of the small acts that taught us to be responsible for our actions.

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What I learned in terms of creativity and technological knowledge, I also learned very young from my father. He taught me how to make kites with pieces of bamboo or reeds that were very light, and he even bought me toy cars with remote control. Most kids had to wait until Christmas or New Year to open their gifts. However, in our case, it was different; as soon as we received the gifts, he gave them to us to enjoy at that moment. We learned from that, that we have to enjoy every day and not wait until it's too late.

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Not only did I play with those toys, but as I became familiar with them, I would disassemble them to see what made them work and then reassemble them. My father never objected to me disassembling the toys. He said curiosity was a good thing and always let me do whatever I wanted with my cars.

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As small children in this small town, we were not so different from the others. The big difference might have been our father, who always planted a seed in our minds and hearts that we could do things differently, in a way that could give us more satisfaction and happiness in life. From our mother, we learned to always do our chores and fulfill all our obligations.

 

My father, like any other person, was, however, a man who inspired his children and others to be more than what might be expected of those living in a humble and rural town in northern Sinaloa.

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A significant part of Mexico has many villages on the path of development. In fact, it is a developing country with immense talent, like my colleagues whom I have met throughout the Mexican Republic. I believe that with the right knowledge, they can embark on and develop local projects for their communities.

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After completing high school in Sinaloa, I decided to continue my studies where my grandparents lived, in the southeast of Mexico, in the state of Veracruz. Many of my young friends who stayed in their hometowns were lured by cartels. Others chose to follow their parents in livestock or agriculture for the rest of their lives without exploring other paths to make a living, where the life cycle continues to repeat.

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After finishing high school and my university in electronics studies in Veracruz, I applied for a scholarship from the Melinda and Bill Gates Foundation to pursue my master's degree at the University of Cambridge. I passed the first hurdle, and then they requested more documents. I never had the chance to send them because my father passed away very suddenly, and I decided to work at sea in the oil industry to support my family. My first job was working for a company as a translator, where I managed to create a balanced environment between Mexicans and Americans, enabling everyone to work in harmony and productivity. After that, I moved to another company where I could use my skills as an electronics engineer. After a couple of years at sea, all my sisters completed their studies, and then I decided to return to continue my studies with a master's degree.

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The first thing to address was improving my English. So, I used part of my savings to go to London for a three-month language course. I passed the exam with good grades, which was enough to apply for a scholarship offered in my country through Conacyt (National Council for Science and Technology), which now changed its name to Conahcyt (National Council for Humanities, Sciences, and Technologies). Before returning from the UK, I made a brief trip further north, where I visited the city of Edinburgh, which I liked a lot, and it stuck in my mind that I had to return to that city. After returning to Mexico, I checked if the University of Edinburgh offered something related to my field. I discovered they offered a good program related to chip design. Therefore, I applied to that university, sent all the required documents, and finally got accepted, considering that I would provide funding for the program course. As I did not receive a response from Conacyt regarding the scholarship program, I decided to spend a few months in Alaska crab fishing. At the same time, I remembered that one of my many uncles lived in California, and I decided to start there before going to Alaska. I found a job in air conditioning, saved money to buy all the necessary equipment for this journey north. I was about to leave when I received an email from Conacyt with the news that they were granting me a full scholarship. Here, I must mention that when one makes a decision wholeheartedly, one must follow that decision, and doors will open along the way. In my case, I took the risk to prepare for a trip to fish crab in Alaska, but I was fortunate to receive this scholarship. That is, without knowing that I would have such a fortunate outcome when applying for a scholarship, I made the decision to go to California, work to save money for my dream.

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Whatever one's dream is, one must make plans, and the result will be as if the body itself becomes receptive to the goal expected to be achieved. Eventually, I arrived in Scotland, knowing how to program certain devices, but also with the desire to learn to program other microcontrollers. The surprise for me was that not only would I become familiar with another spectrum of microprocessors, but I would learn to design a microcontroller entirely, from the highest level (object-oriented design) to a lower level (Gates), using ASIC or FPGA. After acquiring this new knowledge, I returned to Mexico and worked for IPN (National Polytechnic Institute) for a year and then at Intel for about four years.

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It was at this point that I decided to start working on two ideas I had for some time. The first was a project that I felt would help my community (an NGO), and the second, designing and producing a low-cost electric car.

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So, I decided to leave Intel and start the search for my own projects. Gradually, I began to spend my savings on different courses and workshops related to permaculture, bioconstruction, and natural fibers necessary for the training of my new goals to achieve an NGO and the electric car.

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It was then that my grandfather made me sit down and talk with me during one of my visits to his ranch. He told me that what I wanted to do was beautiful, but first, I needed something that would generate money to help others. It was at that moment that he offered me part of his ranch to start working on my projects. His ranch already had bamboo, so I began to craft some items, furniture, and finally bicycles, mountain, road, and vintage models. Then I started to learn how to work with bioconstruction to build ecological shelters. Since then, I have been working at this location to help my local community and find ways to attract both national and international tourists. Although my grandfather worked his whole life in gravel, stone, sand, or river gravel extraction, he had no problem with his ranch taking the course of becoming a sustainable biopark.

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I feel that I had to tell this story to express myself about my past and let you know a little more about my roots and the purpose of what I am currently doing. I started first with a Facebook page, then Instagram, and finally, this website and a YouTube channel were created to share what we do, of course, with the help of some key students who do their social service or residencies belonging to universities with which we have collaboration agreements. We have already offered some free courses or face-to-face voluntary cooperation workshops at our Technochtitlan Biopark on mushroom cultivation, bamboo working, soap making, spa-related topics, and, during the COVID period, some Arduino courses were also offered online for free. Since our pillars are bioconstruction, permaculture, and technology, we try to spread what we do here so that more people gain this knowledge for their own benefit, whether to manufacture their own product for self-consumption or help themselves or start a small business.

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Locally there is deforestation, there are some problems with our trees, flora, and fauna in general. The goal is not only to offer courses or workshops for parents and their children to raise awareness about caring for our environment but also for our locals to have another way to make money and eventually be able to offer them employment by attracting tourism by showing what we are doing. We have already planted 4200 timber trees in our cloud forest to protect our area and replenish flora and fauna.

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We have recently established a nursery and greenhouse to reforest with timber and fruit trees, as well as ornamental and medicinal plants. The main goal of this nursery is to produce an abundance of trees and plants to distribute among our local community, creating an edible forest on our premises and planting trees where necessary to retain water from the clouds and increase our aquifers, essentially manufacturing water through trees.

The impact of climate change extends beyond individual areas; our interconnectedness affects the entire planet. In response, we strive to make a local difference that we hope will resonate in other regions. For example, the port of Veracruz, located in the Gulf of Mexico, is experiencing low water levels due to the dramatic impact of the Jamaca River that feeds the area, caused by extensive tree cutting in the mountains near the Citlaltépetl volcano.

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During our visits to these areas, we observed a significant decrease in the number of trees. Conversations with local residents revealed that, for generations, their only known means of subsistence has been through tree felling. In an effort to introduce alternative ways of life, I shared PDF books via WhatsApp about the construction of wooden shelters and suggested the creation of bungalows for tourists to enjoy the breathtaking views at those altitudes (4000 meters above sea level).

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The current focus is on planting trees in these high-altitude areas. Local residents have expressed their willingness to assist in the planting as long as they receive the necessary trees in their spaces. Although the implementation of the suggested shelters remains uncertain, our first step involves tree planting in their areas and fostering collaboration.

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The areas we have explored in our space, which are the foundations or pillars in Bioparque Technochtitlan, align with bioconstruction, permaculture, and technology, all interconnected with a comprehensive approach.

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Regarding bioconstruction, we know how to craft bamboo products, furniture, bicycles, and structures for construction. We understand how to work with clay, make adobe bricks for houses, and efficiently work with biomass.

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In terms of permaculture, we plant vegetables, germinate seeds for our trees, complemented by workshops on composting to nourish our plants and organic insecticide-fungicide to protect our trees and plants from mites, moths, fungi, etc. We also implement spaces to produce oyster mushrooms for self-consumption, as well as the production of handmade soaps, candles, and shampoo. With this knowledge and using landscaping, we aim to implement our edible forest, pollinator garden, and herbalism. For this, we use sketches that are modeled using design tools such as SketchUp, AutoCAD, and Rhino3D.

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Finally, the technology we have been developing is for use in our biopark, involving Arduino or microchip programming for home automation to save energy using detection sensors. Since we have chickens and ducks, we create smart devices to provide them with water or food when needed. Another significant project that has been gradually developing is the creation of a CPU (superscalar processor) to be loaded onto an FPGA for testing before moving to ASIC. The application could be for home automation or another field, and our goal is low energy consumption. We are also developing a server for use with GPS that we want to place on our bamboo bicycles. So, we use technology where we can combine it with what we do in our space. For the electric car mentioned earlier, we first need to develop circuits for the bamboo electric bike, and then this technology will be transferred to the eco-friendly electric car.

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With this, we try to explain where we come from, what we have been through, and give a brief introduction to what we want to do and continue to help in our region. Of course, none of this would be possible without all the people who have been with us supporting us. We believe that with this campaign, more people can join and, of course, benefit or learn when they visit us. Those who have visited us know that they can count on us whenever they need it. We consider them as brothers to all those who have passed through our space.

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