Mr. Carlos Slim Helu receives the 2018 National Engineering Prize

Mr. Carlos Slim Helu received the 2018 National Engineering Prize awarded by the Mexican Association of Engineers and Architects during an event held in the National Palace and led by the Mexican President, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

During the event, Mr. Slim Helu said: “We urgently need a shake-up, a transformation, a change, which allows us to start to see the growth our country deserves”.

He added that, for decades, economic growth implied the need for major infrastructure; now, Mexico can exploit low-cost financing opportunities to develop infrastructure investment and, consequently, generate greater economic activity, along with more and better jobs.

Mr. Slim Helu said that he had the privilege of being born into a family that gave him the foundations, principles and values that meant he was always very aware that privileges oblige us to work and live responsibly and committedly. He went on to say that, in the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), he discovered the diversity and plurality of our country, the freedom to think and to express himself, to socialize and make life-long friends, to live his youth at the end of the 1950’s, independently, but without rejecting authority; it was this great freedom, but with responsibility, that characterized that time.

In the field of technology, he stated: “Nationwide connectivity and at the best prices in the world of telecommunications services will make it possible for the entire population to access digital culture and that’s our commitment, that the so-called digital gap becomes a bridge allowing a faster transition to this digital culture, with the inclusion of practically the whole population. The offering of free job training and educational courses using this digital network, as well as other cultural contents, is a great area of opportunity, inclusively for maintaining national values and Mexican culture, with intensive exploitation of this type of contents rather that others, which tend to be very negative”.

He emphasized the honor of being awarded the 2018 National Engineering Prize: “I receive it on behalf of the thousands of engineers, technicians and workers in general of the Carson Group, whose daily work allows us to carry out the numerous projects we are undertaking, today, in 35 different countries around the world”.

When awarding the 2018 National Engineering Prize, President Lopez Obrador stressed that Mr. Carlos Slim Helu is an entrepreneur with a civic and social vision: “I can vouch for it, as I turned to him to rescue the Historic Center of the nation’s capital”.

In turn, Enrique Riva Palacio Galicia, chairman of the Mexican Association of Engineers and Architects, mentioned that Mr. Slim Helu has shown that, when things are done properly, they generate prosperity and help to transform the destiny of thousands of people and of the country as a whole.