Escuela Superior Politecnica del Litoral

Foundation years

On October 24, 1958, through Executive Decree 1664 by President Camilo Ponce Enriquez, the Escuela Superior Politecnica del Litoral was created as a higher education institution due to increasing demands for a scientific and technological education for the Littoral Region.

On Tuesday, May 19, 1959, ESPOL was inaugurated, and the following Monday,May 25, 1959, classes began. Its first location, due to the lack of its own campus, was the old "Casona" building on "Chile" Street of the Universidad de Guayaquil. The area around the historical Peñas area provided a central location in the city, and the buildings in that area were bough by ESPOL with an initial payment of 12 million sucres.

On 1969, The Quinto Guayas Battalion, gave to ESPOL the area between the Simón Bolívar embankment and Loja Street, where the four departments that existed at that time (Engineering in Geology, Mining engineering and Petroleum engineering; Electrical engineering; Naval engineering and Mechanical engineering) were co-located.

On 1973, The Naval Infantry Corps of Ecuador moved from their base in Guayaquil, and in their place, the new installations for the Facultad de Ingenieria Maritima y Ciencias del Mar were constructed.

Changing campuses

In 1995 ESPOL began to move from its historical Campus to the new campus that was being built in the outskirts of the city. The new campus included over 700 hectares (1,700 acres) and included a protected forest which the university took over.

Recent history

ESPOL is involved in multiple changes and projects. Some of the changes are new buildings and facilities.

On the facilities side ESPOL, in 2009, started the construction of PARCON short for Parque del Conocimiento (Trans: Knowledge Park), where all the research centers of ESPOL will be located in new buildings. In 2009, ESPOL built a set of buildings to host the prepolitenico (first year general studies). In 2010, ESPOL started the construction of the new EDCON building.

New research centers such as CIDIS begun their work as new entities based on the old VLIR-ESPOL program.

Campus de Peñas

With 2.5 ha and located near the historical center of Guayaquil, Las Peñas campus was the center of the academic life of ESPOL. However it is impossible for the campus to grow to accommodate the needs of a modern university, therefore, almost everything has moved into the Gustavo Galindo campus for the 2011-2012 Academic year.

Campus Gustavo Galindo

With an extension of 724 ha, the Gustavo Galindo Campus is the biggest and main campus of ESPOL. Its location in the Via Perimetral (Highway) allowing easy access to commuting students. The central administration of the university, the schools administration and research centers are located in this campus. Its infrastructure is the result of the developing plan (Plan de Desarrollo 1983–1992) as well as the creation of the new PARCON

Campus Via de la Costa

The Campus Via de la Costa, located on the coast of the Santa Elena Province hosts the CENAIM-ESPOL Foundation and the Sea related degrees and research.

COPOL

The Polytechnic High School (Spanish: Colegio Politecnico) is the secondary educational institution linked and colocated to the university. Created in 1995 to answer the need of a high-level secondary education institution, it is located in the Campus Gustavo Galindo.

ESPAE

Escuela de Postgrado de Administracion de Empresas

FCSH

The Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities (Spanish:Facultad de Ciencias Sociales y Humanísticas) offers the following degrees:

Undergraduate

Graduate

Staff

FICT

The School of Engineering in Earth Sciences (Spanish: Facultad de Ingenieria en Ciencias de la Tierra)

Offers the following degrees:

FIEC

The School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (Spanish: Facultad de Ingenieria Electrica y Computacion).

According to the new university plan and the Schools information, it holds six departments and offers multiple degrees as follows:

FIEC offers Graduate education in its facilities with four Master's programs:

FIMCM

Facultad de Ingenieria Maritima y Ciencias del Mar

FIMCP

Facultad de Ingenieria Mecanica y Ciencias de la Produccion.

FCNM

Natural Sciences and Mathematics Faculty - FCNM (in Spanish Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Matemáticas)

FCL

The College of Liberal Science (Spanish: Facultad de Ciencias Liberadas) is expected to be composed of the current EDCOM, CELEX, Facultad de Tecnologias

Academies

Among the academic resources offered by ESPOL students can choose to follow certification programs through several vendor recogniced academies such as :

Research Centers

There are several research centers at ESPOL. Some of the most important are:

CIDIS

Center for Systems Research, Development and Innovation (Spanish: Centro de Investigación, Desarrollo e Innovación de Sistemas).

CTI

The Centro de Tecnologías de Información (CTI), or Information Technology Center in English, focuses on research of information and communication technologies for education.

PARCON

The PARCON (esp. Parquet del Conocimiento. trans: knowledge park) is the most important university project in Ecuador intended to contribute in the modification of the natal production structure.

HidroESPOL.

HIDROESPOL E.P

TransESPOL

TransESPOL S.A. is the company that provides urban transportation from different points around the city to and from the ESPOL campuses.

APESPOL

APESPOL (for its initials in Spanish of the Professors Association at ESPOL) is the university-wide association of professors and academic employees.

ATP

The Association of Polytechnic Workers (for its initials in Spanish: Asosciacion de Trabajadores Politecnicos) is the university-wide association of all the university workers including administrative employees, academic employees and maintenance employees

FEPOL

Polytechnic Student Federation (for its initials in Spanish: Federacion de Estudiantes Politecnicos) is the university-wide student association. It is formed by the colleges students associations.

Club de Emprendedores

El Club de Emprendedores de la Espol tiene como objetivo exclusivo el fomento y la práctica de actitudes emprendedoras, creativas e innovadoras. Está conformado por estudiantes de diversas carreras, buscando promover el emprendimiento como una forma de vida, independientemente de la carrera o actividad.

Además de esto, el club busca:

El Club de Emprendedores de la ESPOL se fundó en el año 2008, cuyo mentor fue el Ing. Guido Caicedo R.,director del Centro de Desarrollo de Emprendedores (CEEMP) quien coordinó el evento Innovation Tournament en ESPOL para de esa manera, con los estudiantes politécnicos ganadores del evento, reclutar a los primeros miembros co-fundadores del Club. Por esta razón, el Club está conformado por estudiantes de las distantas facultades y carreras de la ESPOL, estudiantes que hacen del emprendimiento su estilo de vida.

Una de las actividades más importante que el Club realiza cada año en la ESPOL es la Semana del Emprendedor, evento que cuenta con la participación de emprendedores nacionales y/o internacionales que comparten sus experiencias. Durante la Semana del Emprendedor también se organizan concursos y el Desafío Emprendedor con el objetivo de incentivar entre los estudiantes el espíritu del emprendimiento.

Presidentes:

- Walter Morán 2008 a 2011 - Gabriel Intriago 2012 a 2013 - Olga Larrea 2014 - Fabián Valarezo 2014

Celula Microsoft-ESPOL

The "Celula Microsoft ESPOL" is the Microsoft Student Tech Club at ESPOL. It has eight branches that focus on Microsoft Technologies and its integration with other proprietary and free technologies. Web: Celula Microsoft-ESPOL

IEEE student branch

As its name states, it is a student branch of the IEEE.

Faculty