Interview with Luis Espinosa, a purpose driven engineer

On the 12th of December, 2023, social solver by Ayuda en Acción launched a new challenge that aimed to develop a new sustainable system for cocoa fermentation that would improve the quality of the grain, in aroma and taste.

This new challenge focused on indigenous and wild cocoa farming families in the Bolivian Amazon, who are trying to increase their income through a higher quality cocoa production.

Cocoa bean fermentation process is affected by temperature fluctuations. This is because the fruiting and maturation of wild cocoa pods occur between December and March, when the intense rains in the Beniana Amazon occur.

The fermentation process is neither controlled nor standardized: Bags and baskets are used, the fermentation itself is not controlled by equipment, and adequate procedures and practices are not applied.

Today we are pleased to have interviewed Luis Espinosa, one of the challenge winners, 

Who is Luis Espinosa?

Luis Espinosa Pardos, 30 years old, was born in Híjar, a spanish village in the province of Teruel, located 72 km from the city of Zaragoza. He grew up in his hometown until the age of 18, when he moved to Zaragoza to study mechanical engineering. Before finishing his studies, he found his current job and decided to take root in this wonderful city. 

Luis works at Hitachi Energy, a Japanese multinational with strong environmental and social values that he has adopted over the years. He was also admitted to the University of Barcelona a few years ago and registered as an independent engineer.

However, he feels that his most relevant work experience has not yet arrived, His dream is to start his own business in Híjar to contribute to its future and prevent this village from being forgotten. Every day there are fewer and fewer people living in the very noble, loyal and ancient village of Híjar.

How did he know Social Solver by Ayuda en Accion?

Luis found the ennomotive platform last year through Linkedin and signed up for the "Liner system to cover material heaps" challenge. He finally lived a busy period for both Hitachi and its own projects and finally had no time to participate. Later, he signed up for the “cocoa fermentation “ challenge at Social Solver and submitted a solution.

Luis certainly prefers Social Solver challenges because he feels that he is helping people who have not been so lucky. He considers being privileged for being born in a developed country with his parents making an effort to give him an education, as well as receiving some scholarships for his studies.

He feels he has a commitment to return to society a portion of what he has received so, whenever he can, he will try to contribute with other social challenges to make a better world.

His main motivation is to support people who need help such as vulnerable communities. He also believes that contribution to development should be provided in the countries. Helping immigrants is fine, but it’s still a patch. It is essential to help develop countries so that their people can find prosperity in their parents´ and grandparents´ land. Leaving your land of origin to find a decent life in another place is really a pity.

The cocoa fermentation project has been his first experience with open innovation challenges. He is now very keen to continue supporting the teams who will develop his idea on the cocoa plantations in Bolivia. He is hoping to create a connection to implement a solution that really helps improve the economy of those farming families.

“If you can see a real improvement in the coming years, you would be very proud of your contribution”

How did he solve the challenge?

His idea came from Luis' previous experiences, both in his actual company and in the projects he has carried out independently.

One project he has recently developed is to design an automatic fish feeder.

"I love animals and for almost two years my wife and I have had an aquarium of about 60 litres. On weekends, we usually go to my village to meet our family so I developed an automatic fish feeder to prevent fish from getting out of food during his absence"

First he designed all the parts with a 3D CAD program and later he used a 3D printer from a colleague to manufacture those parts. With a motor and an Arduino controller, he programmed the feeding operation to automate the delivery of food to the fish.

Luis believes that the key to success is a combination of knowledge and experience so everyday he tries to learn something new, in different engineering fields hoping to find an opportunity to apply that knowledge to find a solution to a problem in the future.