Claudio is obsessed with technology. As an engineer in automation and a teacher at a local university, you’d think his home would provide a respite from the world of wires, circuits, and electrical currents.
But that’s not the case.
Married to a fellow engineer, Claudio’s family have technology hardwired into their DNA. Even his children carry the engineering gene. “My three-year-old daughter is learning about programmable logic controller functionality,” Claudio laughs. “It’s amazing.”
But Claudio’s love of engineering isn’t just about practical or technical skills. It’s based around his passion for knowledge. “It’s about curiosity,” he explains. “My family are all very curious people, that’s why we’re always building and learning new things.”
Seeing his ideas come to life is an endless source of inspiration for him. “Siemens is everywhere in Chile, from Santiago’s electric buses to the fact that last year, the company employed 2,600 people across the country. We’re everywhere.”
As a Product Manager in automation, Claudio is helping the country with one of its biggest resources — mining. “Mining takes a lot of water,” he explains. “In the north of Chile, where some of the materials are, it’s a complete desert.”
Rather than shipping in vast amounts of water or depleting a local reserve, Claudio is helping companies to use seawater. Desalination removes contaminating salts and minerals from seawater so it can be used in production plants. It’s then piped more than 300km overland to the mine. “The whole process is about integration,” he explains. Using automation and cloud technologies, people can constantly monitor the chemical balance in the desalination plant no matter where they are.
Digitization can transform entire industries
“My principal challenge is to show people in Chile what we can achieve with this kind of technology,” says Claudio. Day-to-day, he spends time transferring information from one person to another. “All my clients and customers need support. My colleagues do. Even I do! We need to work well with each other — that way we can reach the best solution.”
Claudio has high hopes for the innovations he is working on. But new ideas don’t just happen on their own — they require inspirational people to develop new capabilities and push them forward. “We need to train people in Chile to jump from traditional jobs to ones that use digitization,” Claudio says. “Because those traditional jobs don’t always help build people’s skill sets for the future.”
He is doing his bit to educate and inform everyone about digitization, because — as the famous saying goes — knowledge is power. And the best way to help people is by teaching them how to help themselves. Whether it’s his three-year-old daughter or educating himself on the latest innovations, Claudio will never stop believing in learning.
Claudio Gaete lives in Santiago, Chile, with his wife and three children. Find out more about working at Siemens.
Claudio is one of the many talented people working with us to make real what matters.
Photography: Franz Grünewald
Video: Mattias Matoq
