Caracas, March 28, 2025 – Venezuela is hosting this Friday the First Meeting of Ministers and High-level Authorities in the field of science and technology of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America – Peoples’ Trade Treaty (ALBA-TCP). This gathering takes place as part of the agreements reached during the bloc’s 12th Extraordinary Summit held in February of this year.

The Executive Secretary of ALBA, Jorge Arreaza, warmly welcomed the ministers of science and technology, stating that ALBA is called upon, as emphasized by President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela and President Miguel Díaz-Canel of Cuba, “to generate, with our own capabilities, the technological sovereignty that allows us to improve our lives through technology while protecting our people.”

Arreaza stressed that this meeting must serve to reaffirm the importance of science and technology in developing, with our own resources, research centers, tools, and scientific investigations that safeguard the people.

“We must protect our people from the dangers posed by these technologies, which today are in the hands of billionaires, multimillionaires, and power centers that threaten the minds, the spirit, and the social fabric of nations and peoples around the world. These centers, controlled from the West, aim to turn the world’s people into technological proletarians,” Arreaza warned.

On the other hand, Venezuela’s Minister of Science and Technology, Gabriela Jiménez, began her remarks by welcoming the heads of the science and technology departments of ALBA-TCP member states.

“Welcome to Bolívar’s House, brothers and sisters of our Bolivarian Alliance. Speaking about science today means discussing a contested domain; it means addressing the challenges of the fourth and fifth revolutions of knowledge, where technological hegemonies, capital, strategies of domination, and so-called globalization converge.”

She added, “Our peoples, our communities, our women, and our children deserve timely and purposeful science, scientific research conceived from within our own territories.” In her view, the goal is for these fields to foster an ethical and moral commitment “that ensures the men and women of the future for Latin America and the Caribbean.”

She emphasized that it is a challenge for ALBA to consider establishing a research and development center in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), particularly given that some of its member countries are subject to sanctions imposed by the imperialist hegemony of the United States.

“We must secure the future of well-being that our region deserves,” she concluded.