30 April 2014 – Philippine Ambassador to Chile María Consuelo Puyat-Reyes attended to a lecture given by Mr. Bertrand Piccard, the designer of the Solar Impulse Project, at the official residence of the Swiss Ambassador in Santiago last April 23.

Mr. Piccard was born into a dynasty of explorers and scientists who have conquered the heights and depths of our planet. He made the first ever non-stop round-the-world balloon flight for 20 days. Now, in a hangar near Zurich, a team of scientists and engineers around Piccard and the co-pilot André Borschberg is building Solar Impulse, an unconventional aircraft designed to circumnavigate the Earth powered by solar energy. Solar Impulse has successfully flown from Spain to Morocco and across the United States. The next trip: circumnavigation.

Piccard is also the founder of Winds of Hope, an organization to combat neglected diseases in children, and a Goodwill Ambassador to the United Nations Population Fund.

The Ambassador is interested in giving her support to this Project and is in contact with Fernando Nilo, CEO of Recycla Chile, a social foundation that employs former prisoners to recycle components of high-tech waste and deliver them to potential buyers, to follow the advance of Solar Impulse in Chile. END