Partners
BEYOND CHACAY FOUNDATION
together we are stronger
Since the launch of the Beyond Chacay Foundation in 2013, the success of our initiatives has relied heavily on
partnerships with key stakeholders in the communities where we have been active, in the Galapagos, the Amazon, and the Sierra. We
extend our appreciation and thanks to each of these partners for the success of BCF to date!
Universidad San Francisco de Quito (USFQ) and the Regional Office of the Ministry of Education
We launched our first EcoHelix initiative on San Cristobal in 2013 with a team of 10 USFQ student government leaders who inspired, motivated and trained 55 students from five schools in Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, capital of the Galapagos Archipelago. Funding was provided by the Galapagos Conservancy.
MIT Sloan School of Management MBAs in the SEID Program
From 2014 to 2017, and again in 2023, we worked with teams of
between three and six MIT grads to promote entrepreneurship programs in the Amazon, the Sierra and Galapagos, and in 2017, received
honorable mention from IBM in an initiative that harnessed WATSON to promote personalized ecotourism packages on the Galapagos.
Our first program with the MIT students was with Fredy Shihuango, founder of Winak Chocolates in Archidona, in the Amazon region.
Today, Winak is exporting chocolates to Japan and Europe, supporting local women growere of cacao in the Napo Region.
Subsequent programs with MIT groups focused on the Galapagos, with the exception of our most recent program in 2023, which
created a business model template for the Young American Business Trust (YABT) to train indigenous women leader entrepreneurs
in the Amazon.
In 2016, we placed ten students from the University of Calgary’s Renewable Energy Master’s program, three in Archidona, three in Mindo (Ecuador’s Cloud Forest in the Sierra), and four on the Galapagos. Our collaboration produced a peer reviewed article in the International Journal of Sustainability of Higher Education, addressing the impact on both local students and international mentors focused on leadership.
In 2018, we entered into an extensive partnership with Villanova University, ElecGalapagos, the Galapagos Conservancy and FUNCAVID,
a local NGO on the Islands, that resulted five years later in the launch of the Galapagos Community Education Network. We connected 23 of
the 24 schools on the the three major populated islands, and in 2025, will be extending the signal into the communities through repeaters and
hot spots.
In 2021, we began working with the Ministry of Public Health to create an application, providing information with island health care
providers and locals, with a focus on Health Promotion and Disease Prevention.
Most recently, our work has focused on workshops in digital literacy, the Internet of Things, Entrepreneurship, robotics and energy led by
student from Villanova, ESPOL and schools on San Cristobal, Santa Cruz and Isabela, with support from FUNCAVID and OrcaTec, a local
alternative energy company.
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We want to improve education in the Galapagos Islands, provide schools with free internet connectivity, to empower education and provide digital tools to encourage entrepreneurship.
