Corfo Astroinformatics Program

It is forecasted that Chile will host 70% of the ground instruments collecting area during the next decade. The scientific value, volume and complexity of data produced by these telescopes will continue to grow, this is a challenge for astronomy and a great opportunity for our country. This is a program of the Strategic Investment Fund of the Economy Ministry, through the Digital Transformation Agency of the Chilean Economy Development Agency (CORFO). Its mission is to identify and initiate measures and investments to diversify and grow Chilean economy in Big Datausing natural advantages in Astronomy and its computing- intensive challenges. The project will carry over activities together with the astroinformatics community and key actors from computing- intensive industries whose impact in Chilean economy is critical, such as mining, agriculture, aquiculture, or disaster risk and response management (meteorology, seismology, among others). The main objective of the project is to analyze opportunities for Chile in the global astroinformatics R&D context, specific objectives are 1) select best opportunities to obtain knowledge, human capital, and technology transfer to industries that are critical to Chile, 2) elaborate a strategy with astroinformatics community and key actors from selected industries to develop local initiatives that exploit identified opportunities, 3) execute the plan and processes to design these initiatives to a basic engineering level, and 4) elaborate strategies to assure economic sustainability of next stages of implementation and operations.