Plug in: Todd Fischer, right, vice president of engineering for RidgeRun, which is investing in a university software development program in Costa Rica.

Ronald Reyes | Tico Times

RidgeRun, a software and services company, will donate about $80,000 to the Costa Rican Technology Institute (TEC) as part of project to motivate students to develop software applications, the U.S.-based company said on Thursday.

The donation was funded by Texas Instruments (TI), which is the third largest producer of microprocessors in the world. RidgeRun, a third-party developer for TI, was one of the first software companies to operate in Costa Rica.

“About nine months ago I called up Texas Instruments and said “You guys need some more Digitial Signal Processing (DSP) developers. Let's work with the university in Costa Rica to make that happen,'” said Todd Fischer, vice president of engineering for RidgeRun. “And they said ‘Sounds great. What do you want?' ”

The investment in the university will focus on the creation of chips that will be used to manage software for audio, video, automobile, medical equipment devices. One type of software that Fischer said will be produced is a device that films the path of the car as it is driven. Fischer said that such technology could be used to provide evidence of fault in the event of an accident.

RidgeRun and TI are two members of a long list of technology companies with operations or investments in Costa Rica. Hewlett-Packard and Intel, which is the country's leading exporter, also have substantial operations here.

Over the past decade, several foreign technology companies have expanded operations to Costa Rica or invested considerable amounts of capital into projects in the country. Some of that investment is going into education.