Why cuban computer scientist are invisibles?

Rainyel Ramos
2 min readJun 9, 2021

Cuba is (in 2021) a poor country (island) in the Caribbean Sea where a good internet connection is a luxury. The government has invested to create mobile infrastructure and today 4G data network is a reality, the connection speed is not so bad, but still expensive and unstable (it is very difficult to have a videoconference). Five years ago the internet connection was worst, 3G did not exist and Internet access for the average person was impossible. If you wanted to connect to internet you had to do it in some special places, paying 4 USD/hour, equivalent to a quarter of the average salary.

Computer scientists (and programmers) working in state-owned companies with Internet access were lucky. Work for a state company with an internet connection was very good because programmers could work for foreign companies using the internet connection of cuban work (one of my professors explain this). I remember my first year in computer science at matcom (School of Math and Computer Science of Havana University), I had only 150MB/month in the university. I did not use the internet at that time. But the government began to create internet infrastructure, first it was the Wi-Fi access points in the parks and then the 3G network was implemented. The connection at the University of Havana has also been improved, today a student has more than 4GB/month and this limit is going up. Today the 4G data network is a reality. It is not necessary to look for a job in Cuba that has an internet connection in the office.

Today, the Cuban computer scientist (and programmer) has a greater presence on the Internet, for example: the excellent articles of one of my former classmates or other of my former classmates or the blog of one of my professors, mathematicians from matcom also have blogs (about programming). 4G is still expensive, 14GB for 1000 pesos, about a quarter of an average salary, but it is enough for most programmers. Nauta Hogar is another option, it is an ADSL service, it is cheaper than 4G, but slower, 40 hours/month is 375 pesos. If you consume all the hours of Nauta Hogar you can buy every extra hour for ten pesos. The best: you can work from home. The Cuban government continues to bet on 4G data networks and prices for internet access continue to fall. I hope that the people of Cuba will be more interconnected in the future.

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