Each year the European Commission selects 12 solutions that make it to the global final round of DigiEduHack. In 2020, the competition of 51 projects was fierce which is why we were extremely proud when Remote Matter Labs from Argentina was chosen as one of the best 12 solutions around the world.

Remote Matter Labs are lab modules prepared to be operated remotely, as they are real laboratories, not virtual ones, they allow more features than the simulators that are usually used to overcome shortcomings in laboratory equipment. These remote labs contribute to sustainability by reducing the mobility of students to and within large urban centres and provide accessibility to high-cost technologies and knowledge to students and institutions with fewer resources, also allowing access not only to equipment but to advice by specialists on the subject, achieving real democratization of STEM careers.

Diego Hugo Barrera and Silvina Carla Prieto, who both stand behind the project explain that this type of digital education can revolutionize the entire laboratory system as we know it today. Laboratories can be assembled in universities and research centres specialized in a certain area, with experts who assist or perform maintenance, allowing better use of educational resources throughout the world. This would create almost a "timeshare" of high-tech laboratories, in the same way, that today is done with supercomputers in the scientific area.

We congratulate these two visionaries as well as all other winners and hope for similar stories of success in the future.