‘In application, the title of the video game is innovation’

At GeneXus, we create application that builds software package. A robot or synthetic intelligence, not a human, writes the code for new apps. The company, which I co-established in 1988, is also doing work on modest autonomous automobiles for agrobusiness. The prototype in this picture — at our worldwide headquarters in Montevideo — which I aided to method, is named MadMax (immediately after the 1979 movie). It will get the job done in a greenhouse, transporting lettuces immediately after staff select them.

This usually means resolving a quite major engineering difficulty — autonomous navigation. We humans can shift quickly from one particular spot to a further for the reason that of our refined visual devices and our brain’s intricate mapping algorithms. But it is tough for a equipment, which has neither, to answer the issue: “Where am I?” Autonomous cars also have to avoid hitting hurdles, regardless of whether stationary or mobile, this sort of as a running child.

In application, the title of the sport is innovation. When the COVID-19 pandemic began, the Uruguayan federal government required a digital relationship with every citizen — it was like a war problem. So a group of builders, like some from GeneXus, created the app Coronavirus UY in one particular 7 days.

The app screens indicators, connects end users to a medical professional on a video clip phone and sends out publicity alerts. This attribute was a challenge because the federal government completely did not want to observe people’s positions. We solved that by using Bluetooth. Phones that are close to a single another exchange some information. The application tracks these exchanges and sends an inform to a user’s cell phone when it has put in much more than 15 minutes within just 3 metres of one more cellphone whose consumer has tested optimistic for COVID-19.

I never know where my drive to develop points that did not exist will come from. But once I have it, I are unable to stop it. A painter informed me that when he will get influenced, “there are no weekends”. The exact issue happens to me.