Fidel and the universalization of Informatics in Cuba

The Algerian president Abdelaziz Bouteflika was truly right when he said that Fidel travelled to the future, and then he went back to explain it. There could not be any other way of understanding how he discerned the potentialities of Informatics in Cuba.

As M.Sc. Melchor Gil Morell recounted during Informática 2018, in the first years of the Revolution there was a growing necessity of boosting sugar production and enhancing the railway system. Fidel foresaw the impact that computers would have on these aspects and set the goal of creating the first Cuban computer in response to the technological fencing that had been imposed on the island.

“Many of the tasks are complex: managing the whole traffic of a sugar mill, the route of the trains, the program. In that way, we are now analyzing, and trying to produce the first computer that will indicate on a daily basis in every sugar mill what the optimal route of the trains should be.”

It was not until 1969, after meeting with Erwin Roy John, an expert in the field of neuroscience, that the first steps towards this goal were taken. In response to the impossibility of sharing technology and knowledge caused by the blockade, the Leader of the Cuban Revolution created a work group.

"On April 5, 1969, Fidel meets Roy Jonh, father of neuroscience in the US and asks for his collaboration to create the first computer in Cuba, but the American intelligence agencies intercede and prohibit the transfer of technology and knowledge. Fidel then created a working group in the school of technologies at the University of Havana, led by Julián Carrasco and directed by Orlando Ramos. "

Gil Morell recalled that on April 18, 1970, he presented CID 201 to Fidel, a moment that marked, according to the specialist, "the beginning of the Cuban electronics industry."

Another of the moments that marked Fidel's relationship with informatics was undoubtedly the creation of the Computerization Joven Clubs. "Fidel was always interested in the universalization of informatics and in 1987 the Electronics and Computerization Joven Clubs were born to achieve massive access for young people," he said.

Initially 32 Joven Clubs were installed throughout the country, a way to prove the initial idea. Seeing the results, this program was further promoted until, at least, there was one installation per municipality.

“That challenge implies a domain, for example, computing. You can not survive without the mastery of computing, of electronics, of the media. No one can imagine what those Joven Clubs that have been created throughout the republic mean and where so many thousands of young people have learned to use computers. Nobody imagines what the programs that the Revolution made to introduce the computer, first in the higher centers, then continue it in other centers, and we have to make the same effort to take it to every educational level”.

Melchor Félix Gil Morell concluded that one of the greatest projects that were ever devised by the Commander in Chief for contributing to the informatization of the Cuban society was the University of Computer Science.

“Fidel, as a foundational strategy, advised that this university should be conceived as an institution of a new kind, with nationwide coverage, featuring unconventional characteristics and specific tasks aimed at the informatization project of the Cuban society”.