In a word, yes.

In my recent trip to Havana, I was able to visit three excellent hubs of learning and technology: the Academia de Esciencias Foundation, the University of Havana and the PolyTechnical Institute. Each one was impressive, but for different reasons.

The Academia de Esciencias has been around for ~100 aught years, with credits that include the discovery that- perhaps- mosquitos carry malaria and typhoid. It’s actually a very impressive structure in old havana, with a wealth of documented history that could benefit from a modern scanner to digitize everything before it melts ;). Dr Pastrana has overseen great progress there, and perhaps this one day is a hub for Innovator. Likewise, the University of Havana impressed me as a Colombia with Palm Trees: beautiful buildings, sweeping grounds, a tremendous sense of history . The labs were more relevant to science part of delegation: they do things there that very few US labs can imagine (but it’s all over my head, I’m not in their league in science). The Cuba Polytechnic Institute was impressive in the modernity of the facilities and the tech savvy of their department heads. Reminded me of Stanford, sans pine trees.

Overall, I was very impressed with the quality of the education, and the number of kids that have taken advantage of it (it’s free there),.