This month marked the end of the university semester at PUC (which means winter should be on its way in earnest, I hear). In this final stretch, I worked with two other students to analyze and present on an important article in the world of incentive-compatible contract design for collective choice problems (e.g. a city government trying to decide how much to charge community members for a public good, like a park). As the final project, we subsequently wrote a mock scientific article applying the mechanisms used in this paper to a hypothetical community solar case.

Over the course of the month, my research team and I worked to get our survey–related to local solar initiatives–onto an online platform. We then tested the survey with several volunteers to see where improvements could be made. We have also been reaching out to many local community groups and NGOs to identify potential means of collaboration in survey distribution. In this vein, I was able to meet with some of the leaders of the only existing community solar project in Santiago, and learn from their experiences in getting this project up and running and recruiting investors.

Over the weekends, I was able to climb a few local trails. In Parque Nacional La Campana, I made my way to the top of Cerro Roble with some friends from Chile and the US. In search of some of the majestic Andean snow visible from Santiago, I also hiked in Parque Yerba Loca to Refugio Aleman. I also made my way to Elqui Valley, where I and a few friends biked, learned about pisco, and saw the rings of Saturn through a vineyard telescope.
In the upcoming weeks, I plan to polish our online survey to be launch-ready, and to work to finalize the outlets through which we will be able to distribute the survey.
I enjoyed working with my group members to complete the final presentation and project for our Market Design and Game Theory class, and feel as though I was able to contribute significantly to these efforts.