Valeria Palacios Cruz is a student innovator at Universidad Ceulver, Veracruz, Mexico. She focuses on applying Artificial Intelligence to robotics, drone technologies, and immersive environments to address the environmental and social challenges she has witnessed in her community. She has developed drones that can remove waste from water and reseed deforested habitats and assist with emergency rescues.

Her interest in environmental technology began when she observed the pollution affecting the lagoons and coastal areas of Veracruz. This led her to develop the Clean Water Drone, an autonomous device equipped with computer vision capable of detecting and collecting floating waste. By refining the system’s detection model and coordinating its collection mechanism, Palacios Cruz demonstrated how AI could be used to monitor and clean contaminated water surfaces more efficiently.

Building on this, she created Drones for Reforestation, aimed at restoring degraded natural areas. Through AI-based analysis of aerial imagery, the system identifies damaged zones and disperses seeds precisely where they are needed. The project explored how AI-guided autonomy can accelerate reforestation efforts in locations that are difficult or dangerous to access manually.

Palacios Cruz’s work expanded into socially focused robotics with the development of CONIA, a service robot designed to support elderly individuals living independently. Using computer vision and natural-language processing, CONIA can recognise medications and prescriptions, interpret printed materials, and detect potential emergency situations. The robot provides clear explanations of medicines and assists with routine tasks, showing how AI can contribute to safer daily living and more accessible support for older adults.

Palacios Cruz’s most advanced project, Project Mantarraya, extends her use of artificial intelligence into the field of emergency response. This heavy-lift autonomous drone is designed for rescue operations and incorporates AI models for human detection, environmental analysis, and safe-route planning. The system can identify people in danger and map a secure return path, offering a potential tool for disaster-response teams working in challenging or hazardous conditions.

Her work across these many and varied areas has produced working prototypes that demonstrate the practical solutions AI can deliver in the most challenging of circumstances.