Brazil is ready for giant telescopes

This week the Science and Technology Ministry have signed agreement with the European Southern Observatory (ESO), directed by Tim de Zeeuw, stating that Brazil can now be part of three main projects: Giant Magellan Telescope - GMT; Thirty Meter Telescope –TMT and European Extremely Large Telescope – E-ELT).

Brazil is open about its intentions, to be introduced to the international community and open the opportunity for national companies to be part of construction and infrastructure projects. Finally Brazil is taking seriously the National Plan for Astronomy (PNA).

PACTI investment results published

PACTI stands for Action Plan in Science, Technology and Innovation, for National Development, integrates all shares of the Growth Acceleration Program (CAP). R$6.6 billion invested in three years proved to have made the difference:
- The amount of companies using the Internet for generating business grew about 80%
- 14 states now have their own regional laws for innovative incentives of industry and commerce
- Benefits paid to science students and researchers is now R$2.8 billion per year, almost 3 times greater than it was in 2001

The detailed report in Portuguese.

Government invests in private IT training

CNPq, ..., is an organ of the federal government and they are responsible for the new Brazilian initiative of placing 3.5 million reais into personnel training for the private sector. Companies and individuals can subscribe to the project (see official edital). Simple IT knowledge such as Microsoft Word, Windows and even typing are still necessary since millions of Brazilians have never owned a computer and just now that they are having an opportunity to have a generation of informatics abitues, like the middle and higher-classes did in the 80's.

Russia's new uranium bank

With the intention of stopping countries from developing their own Uranium enrichment infrastructure Russia has created a nuclear fuel bank. In this bank they will deposit Uranium ready to be used in nuclear reactors, which are different from the Uranium used in atomic bombs. They are trying to stop developing country from creating their own enrichment facilities that could, ultimately, be used to treat the mineral for atomic weapons and by doing that they will guarantee secure energy fuel distribution.

News Update:

-- 07 Dec 2010 --

Apparently the fuel market won't be affected by this initiative, mining that Brazil, Argentina and South Africa will still be allowed to export enriched uranium. I don't think this is going to last long though and is funny to see "free" countries taking freedom out of others. (Institute for defence studies and analysis).

-- 06 Dec 2010 --

Three days ago in Vienna the IAEA board approved the construction of the UN's fuel bank, making that two: one managed by Russia and the other by the IAEA (sponsored by Warren Buffett).

My opinion:
After documents published in WikiLeaks.org and many other stories of corruption and disgraceful abuse from Russian authorities, I don't think any country other than the old URSS partners will use fuel provided by this bank. The problem of unconditional reliance on a single country for providing energy is an old issue and diplomacy has come a long way far from this type of initiative that doesn't add in terms security and doesn't improve life on Earth.

The USA wants to create a similar bank for Iran and Syria with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) which has gone into "dirty-sheets" after revelations of "close relationship" with the US even though it is meant to be an impartial international organ.

Plus, countries like Brazil, India and Pakistan have their own enrichment facilities and although the last two have developed atomic bombs to trough on each other, they all comply with the IAEA and UN regulations. Politics and weapons are going the wrong direction again!

Lowest deforestation rate since 1988

15 Ministries em representaves of 9 Brazilian states are discussing the Macrozoning Ecological-Economic Amazon (MacroZEE), a Federal project that is helping to save the Amazon.
The deforestation rate in 2009/2010 indicates a decrease of 13.6% over the previous period. It is the lowest rate measured by INPE since 1988 and the plan to keep a sustainable development for the communities over this vast area of rain forest is still very much alive.

High-Tech Geology

With the intension of spread the culture of innovation through the mining and geology sector in Brazil, historically conservative, the secretary of Technological Development and Innovation of the Ministry of Science and Technology (MCT), Ronaldo Mota, presents this Thursday (2nd December 2010) governmental programs and actions available that support this initiative. This is a very import part of the country's structure and advances in technology are required to make it more competitive and help productivity.

Thorium instead of Uranium?

Brazilian nuclear scientists are considering investing in research for substituting enriched Uranium in its power plants in Angra. The Center for Mineral Technology (CETEM / MCT) held on December 9 the Mini Forum Iberoeka Torio for scientists and business men from Brazil and Latin America. The use of thorium for energy isn't new even for the young Brazilian nuclear energy program (see reference IAEA) but it is still very hard to evaluate the amount if the mineral available for extraction.

Brazillian weather super-computer

INPE (National Institute for Space Research) has developed a computer (Tupã is its name) that has been considered to be among the most powerful in the World. With 258 trillion calculations per second, Tupã is now the third most powerful supercomputer dedicated to operational numerical prediction of weather and climate seasonality.

This XT6, from the company Cray, will improve accuracy and help with the Brazilian Model for Global Climate System that should help evaluate the effects of anthropogenic activities (eg, emissions of greenhouse gases, changes in vegetation, urbanization, etc.) on Natural Systems, extremely important for countries in development.

40 billion for Brazilian nuclear energy program

Brazil will try to reignite its nuclear energy program with an investment of R$40 billion (around US$20 billion) over the course of one year. There are today three power-plants in operation and the self sufficiency in enrichment of Uranium will receive a make over with the new program. Liliane Rank completed, in November 2009, the final report of this first phase of development, the "Study of the Supply Chain of the Brazilian Nuclear Program: background and prospects of the sector of nuclear power generation in Brazil" sees future growth in demand.

Will Brazil supply Uranium to Iran? Recently there was a global discussion whether Brazil should provide enriched Uranium to the controversial need for nuclear power of Iran in the Middle-East. There is no sign of advances in this subject since Iran is already enriching it themselves and so I don't think the new Brazilian program considers this issue at this point. I will provide updates on this in the future.

Germany recently in Brazil

Two things have happened recently between Germany and Brazil: The event "The year of Germany in Brazil" organised by the Brazilian Academy of Sciences (ABC) in partnership with Leopoldina - German National Academy of Sciences - and the visit of an IT delegation made to discuss the current scientific exchange and educational differences between these countries.

11 million dollars in search for European partnership

Brazil is investing U$11 million for creating partnerships between research institutions of this country and EU. The objective is to create an infrastructure for research and development of laboratories and to gather human resources for a better effective use of advanced technologies, with efficiency and international competitiveness. People and companies interested should submit the projects until the 8th of February 2011 and the maximum period for the execution of such project is 30 months. Take a look at the CNPq website http://www.cnpq.br/editais/ct/2010/066.htm

Burger King is now Brazilian?

Today, Wednesday the 2nd of September 2010, the Brazilian group 3G Capital based in New York have settled an agreement to purchase 46% of Burger King for U$4 billions. 3G Capital was founded by Marcel Telles, Jorge Paulo Lemann and Carlos Alberto Sicupira, currently major share holders of Imbed, biggest beer factory in the World, also Brazilian.

Green plastic? What is that?

The green plastic could come from Brazil. Green polymers is the focus of this ground-breking research that promisses to put Brazil in the fore front of the ecological development with the partnership between Braskem (privatly owned petrochemical company) and LNBIO (National Laboratory of Biosciences). The objective is to develop an economically competitive and sustainable "plastic" using raw materials from renewable sources after Braskem bought Quattor and part of Sunoco Chemicals, both frmo the U.S., earlier this year.

Rio Info 2010

Rio de Janeiro becomes the Brazilian national IT city with Rio Info 2010, the political event that gathers together 1500 people from hundreds of private companies and representatives of 10 states. For more information please visit www.rioinfo.com.br

Switzerland-Brazil Symposium - Challenges of Cities in the 21st Century Metropolis

The event is part of the agenda of the High Level Mission of Switzerland to Brazil, which takes place 26-30 August to deal with the deepening of bilateral scientific and technological relations issues of higher education in both countries and international cooperation in health.

How science and technology can help with the challenges modern cities face in this century? This is the question researchers, students, scientists, businessmen, representatives of civil society organizations and municipal government, state and federal are trying to answer.

Attended the opening ceremony of the Federal Councillor of Switzerland, Didier Burkhalter, president of the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), Carlos Aragon, the mayor of Rio de Janeiro, Eduardo Paes, the Swiss Ambassador Wilhelm Meier and chairman IAB / RJ, Sérgio Magalhães.

Brazil and Israel Partnership

Brazil and Israel are in the search for commercial partnership. Small and medium sized companies from both countries have until the 3rd of Novembre to submit their list of requirements for finding a business partner. IF partnership is successful, governments will finance import and export. BNDES, BNB and FINEP are the Brazilian departments to run the financial support; OCS is the Irealy investment department responsible.

$500 million for small business innovation projects

Innovation rate is one of the aspects highly considered for the RS$500 million invested by the Brazilian Government into private sector high-tech research projects.

The Financier of Studies and Projects (Finep) will invest the above sum into projects of up to RS$500,000 budget in 6 main areas: information technology and communication, energy, biotechnology, health, defence and social development. 40% of the total amount must go to micro and small companies and 30% must be invested on the poorest areas: North, Northeast and Midwest.

The focus of this investment is, among other things:

• Development of integrated circuits
• Projects for improvement of optoelectronic devices and microelectromechanical
• Systems, software or hardware, with great impact in the 2014 World Cup and the Olympics in 2016, able to leverage Brazilian companies to work on the foreign market in the areas of public safety, urban mobility and systems for e-gov
• Developing solutions for exploration and development fields in the offshore oil or gas, including basin modelling, seismic imaging and data acquisition and processing
• Innovations in bio products for nitrogen fixation in grasses and legumes
• Development of bio products for use in pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries, which use active ingredients and essences taken from the Brazilian biodiversity, and for rapid diagnosis of infectious, degenerative and genetic diseases
• Integrated solutions for autonomous flight, including takeoff and landing and automatic optical and infrared systems for unmanned air vehicles
• Systems for widespread access to broadband Internet, to meet the digital inclusion public policies in urban and rural areas

(See the official announcement in Portuguese.)

Good news: there is an active community for information systems professionals

Searching for Investment on Information Systems (IS) in South (or Latin) America I found this great resourceful web siter: The Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries.

Search for "Brazil" and you will find the most relevant academic papers published about Brazilian's IS market and research results in English. It is so interesting and large that people interested would take days (if not week) to read it all. It is a blessing for me as an Systems Analyst who rely on these subjects to feed this blog and my curiosity.

Reading through so paper I found this: The Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS) that will take place in Peru this year, 2010. This is a global initiative from The Association for Information Systems (AIS) that envisages, among other things:

• creating a professional identity for IS educators, researchers and professionals
• promoting communications and interaction among members
• establishing standards of practice, ethics, and education in the IS community

I will study this community a bit further and hopefully I will be able to participate and add value to it.

Flavio Pinto independent journalist in need for clicks

Attention everyone: independent journalists from South America need you support!

Please take a look at Flavio Pinto's web site for which he was assault on the streets by a corrupt politician. This is serious and very useful to know.

* http://www.lucioflaviopinto.com.br/

$7 million for research on yeast, fermentation taken seriously.

Brazilian government wants to create the National Network for Yeast Research because of its super-important usage in biotechnology and genetics. The goal with the investment of R$7 million (about US$4 million) is to increasing scientific knowledge on wild yeasts in Brazil and its potential application; discover new routes and fermentation technology products based on yeast, increase efficiency and technological innovation in industrial bioprocesses based on yeast; articulate and integrate more effectively the groups that research yeast in Brazil, and increase integration between research institutions and the industry.

National Council of Scientific Development (CNPq) is the responsible for this proposal and the investment comes from the Biotechnology Sector Fund (FSB).

Innovation Support Program is the new set of investments Brazilian IT will get

R$500 million (about US$280 million) are to be invested in untaxed incentives for the private section of all markets to improve IT development and research. This means that companies willing to develop technologies for:

• Information Technology
• Nanotechnology / Biotechnology
• Health
• Defence
• Social Development
• Renewable Energy
• Electric Car

The President and the Ministry responsible have also agreed on further R$100 million (about US$60 million) for the Brazilian companies to improve preparation of plans and projects for Innovation Management.

These public resources will be managed by the Financier of Studies and Projects (FINEP), are part of the Productive Development Policy (PDP) and count with the partnership of the National Confederation of Industry (CNI), the Brazilian Service of Support to Micro and Small Enterprises (Sebrae), the National Development Bank (BNDES) and the Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade (MDIC).

Governmental Research Units of Brazil

List of researching units managed and represented by the Ministry of Science and Technology:

	CBPF - Brazilian Center for Physics Research		CEITEC S.A. - Center of Excellence in Advanced Electronic Technology		CETEM - Mineral Technology Center
	CETENE - Center for Strategic Technologies of Northeast		CTI - Center for Information Technology Renato Archer		IBICT - Brazilian Institute of Information Science and Technology
	IDSM - Institute for Sustainable Development Mamirauá		IMPA - National Institute of Pure and Applied Mathematics		INPA - Institute of Amazonian Research
	INPE - National Institute for Space Research		INSA - National Institute for the Semi-Arid		INT - National Institute of Technology
	LNA - National Laboratory of Astrophysics		LNCC - National Laboratory for Scientific Computing		LNLS - National Laboratory of Synchrotron Light
	MAST - Museum of Astronomy and Related Sciences		MPEG - Goeldi Museum		ON - ational Observatory
	RNP - National Education and Research

Society for the Advancement of Science: What Nuclear Energy is for?

The ExpoT&C 2010 is the 62nd Annual Meeting of the Brazilian Society for the Advancement of Science (SBPC) will present the applications for nuclear energy in the event that occur between 25 and 30 July 2010.

The National Commission of Nuclear Energy (CNEN) stand will show to the visitor of the city Natal, capital of the state Rio Grande do Norte, that Brazil, since 1956, has been widely using this type of energy for medicine, industry, electricity generation, agriculture (food irradiation to sterilize it), environmental area and in research activities.

Synchronization of Chaotic Systems and the Dynamic Systems Theory

Brazil is hosting, at the Brazilian's National Institute for Space Research (INPE), one of the most intriguing scientific forum in the World: the Dynamics Days. Started in 1980 this annual meeting aims to discuss Dynamic Systems, chaos and nonlinear phenomena, exploring these theories in natural fields such as biology, chemistry, astronomy, physics, mechanics and electronics.

Some of the most important researchers in the area attended, including some pioneers like the professor Edward Ott, the Brazilian researcher Celso Grebogi, the Unitedstatian James Yorke and Louis Pecora.

The Dynamics Days South America 2010 will happen between 25th and the 30th of July 2010.

National development index to improve innovation in Brazil

Big news: "national development" is now requirement to all governmental purchases and bids.

Currently the bids are made not just on cheapest prices but it is also based on something called "The Preference Margin" which takes into account if the purchase (or acquisition) will generate jobs and collect taxes. Now the development of technological innovation is part of the math and must count 25% of the preference margin index.

According to the Executive Secretary of the Ministry of Science and Technology (MCT), Luiz Antonio Rodrigues Elias, "The measure looks at the power of the purchase of the government as an inductive tool of innovation in Brazil."

Well done Lula!

One more profitable partnership between Brazil and Spain

Spain is tightening ties with Brazilian booming scientific society. Yesterday (19th July 2010) the Minister for Science and Innovation in Spain met up with The Brazilian Minister of Science and Technology Sergio Rezende to discuss how to profit on on Science and Technology.

Spain is on top of Solar Power research and Brazil has the Brazilian Technology System (Sibratec) that reward small and medium companies that invest in technological research. Joining these two governmental initiatives both countries hope to find a way to improve National Health and Renewable Energy, something that the ministers believe will set a good foundation for a better competitiveness.

Sergio Rezende handed over a copy of the PACT report and both agreed that, apart from the sectors of health and energy, biotechnology, nanotechnology and biofuels should also be benefited with a bilateral agreement.

In the past Spain has enjoyed partnering with Brazil's top scientists:

• Small companies investments
• Nanotechnology research

See also the project of Satellite for Oceans Study, project that Spain didn't want to participate in the past

Analyzing gases of big cities is serious business

Grid computing (technology used in the integration of different computational resources) is going to be used by several South-American countries to monitor the quality of the air in mega-cities.

The infrastructure of this project consists of clusters located in the Centre for Modeling Mathematics, University of Chile, Santiago, and at CPTEC, Cachoeira Paulista (SP), connected to networks Assemble (Chile), RNP (Brazil) and Clara (Latin America). The project is called South American Emissions, Megacities and Climate (Saemc) and the goals are to measure and predict the quality of the air of four cities in South America: Santiago, Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

The gases that will be analyzed are carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and aerosol particles from burning and urban and industrial emissions, ozone and its precursors.

Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research now counts with the help of Brazilian researchers

Brazil is now part of the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (Scor) where the vice president now is Ilana Wainer, professor of the Institute of Oceanography of the University of São Paulo (USP). She is specialized in Ocean-Atmosphere Interaction with Climate and will be representing Brazilian interest in this committee which is directly responsible for defining the direction of international oceanographic research.

She points out that the South Atlantic and Southern oceans, in particular, are objects of most interest since they directly influence the climate of Brazil. Brazil is at the vanguard of this type of scientific knowledge and should be of great help to gather data and to keep the ocean 'under control'.

Younger people have much to contribute to an Electronic Government

"First we must change the hierarchical culture within institutions. Who occupies a higher office must understand that younger people have much to contribute. The participation of all employees and the public is key", said Bertucci.

These wise words were part of Bertucci's presentation on 15th July 2010 at the conference "The Future of Electronic Government" that happened in Brazil. Bertucci is Executive-Director of the International Governance Solutions (IGS) and their knowledge is very important to keep a third world country competitive through investments in Information Technology.

The main barrier to create a nation wide communication scheme is to have one single database and structure a governmental company to provide on-line services and to develop applications that opens up the public expenses and help standardize people's access to important (vital) public information.

It is the first step towards a better place, but it is still 20 years late...

Biology and Computer Science? You must be talking about DNA scan

The Brazilian National Laboratory for Scientific Computation (LNCC) opened up its Bioinformatics Laboratory (LABINFO) for the first course on Metagenomic Analysis With the Use of Second Generation Platform for DNA Sequencing.

40 South-American students benefited from the 10 days tuition that aimed to upgrade the general scientific knowledge of the mechanisms for bioinformatics and database analysis adopted today in metagenomics (the study of populations different from microorganisms). The advanced platform presented as the latest in DNA sequencing was 454 da Roche.

According to Gustavo Gregocci, PhD in Biology from the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP): "Computer science is crucial in the selection of data taken after a race over a sequence."

I hope this promotes the use of technology on a field traditionally no so 'into it', like Biology.

Improving competitiveness through energy efficiency

Energy efficiency is a topic of debate in the Brazilian government right now. Its incredible natural resources allowed this country to have cheap hydroelectric power-plants but also stopped technological development of renewable energy research. This week though, the Center for Management and Strategic Studies (CGEE / MCT), in Brasilia, is the place where the Technological Development and Innovation (Setec) and the Ministry of Science and Technology (MCT) meet up to discuss the energy's future.

The challenge for government is to achieve the 2030 target of 10% of electrical energy conservation. Some say that this is only doable with the complete substitution of incandescent light-bulbs and the development of long-term policy aiming energy efficiency improvements.

The day that car manufacturers' lobby failed

The first fast train of Brazil is due to be ready by 2016, when the Olympic Games occur. It will connect Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo (the biggest business axis) and it represents the revitalization of the train system of a country with continental proportions. The Congress must pass a law to create the High Speed Rail SA (Etaves), a state owned company under the Ministry of Transport.

For many years the lack of investment in trains in Brazil was said to be a result a of a well sponsored lobby of the car manufacturers to make this massive country depend on 4 wheel vehicles to distribute its goods. If this is true or not I don't know but it certainly sounds like right. Now the left-wing government has decided to ignore such "sponsorship" and actually help the people to have a better life.

51st International Mathematical Olympiad

51st International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO), which takes place until tomorrow (14) in the city of Astana, Kazakhstan, has already granted Brazil with 2 Silver medals and 1 Bronze.

The 6 students participating of the Brazilian delegation had to resolve 3 math problems in under 4 hours and 30 minutes. Since 1979 Brazil has won 8 gold, 23 silver and 59 bronze. The entities involved in this competition are:

• Brazilian Mathematical Olympiad (OBM)
  
• Brazilian Mathematical Society (SBM)
  
• National Institute of Pure and Applied Mathematics (Impa / MCT)
  
• National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq / MCT) -- supported by
  
• National Institute of Science Technology Mathematics (INCT - Mat) -- supported by
  

I certainly hope trend carries on and education becomes a major investment concern to the government there.

Small actions can bring big institutions together

Educational institutions of Brazil that are promoting post-graduation courses can apply to receive Techno-Kit, which is a Linux Server with Apache, MySQL, PHP, DSpace and Seer installed.

This is a small initiative (part of the "Projects for Implementation of Institutional Repositories") that will help small, but creative, institutions to develop web systems and services that could help improving the spectrum of the subjects researched, help with project micro-management and improve visibility of scientific results.

Governmental departments involved are:

• Foundation for Science, Technology and Space Applications (FUNCATE), 
• In agreement with the Financier of Studies and Projects (FINEP / MCT), 
• Executed by the Brazilian Institute of Information Science and Technology (Ibict).

Some of the institutions beneficiary are:

• University of Brasilia
• Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul
• National Institute of Technology
• National Institute of Metrology, Standardization and Industrial Quality
• Foundation for the Technological Center of Minas Gerais
• Goeldi Museum
• University of São Paulo

Japan and France to partner for protecting the Amazon forest

When someone says the word "tropical", the Amazon is first thing that comes to mind. To protect it, means to preserve the all tropical areas of the Globe. In partnership with other countries the National Institute for Space Research (INPE / MCT) has just launched a program to capacitate technical teams of the countries of South America where the forest stretches, making it possible to fully monitor the region, like the work done by the Institute in the Brazilian Amazon for the last 20 years.

Partnering with France (Institute of Development Research - IRD) and Japan (International Cooperation Agency of Japan - JICA), the Regional Center of the Amazon (CRA) - where the trainings will take place - will permit the distribution of satellite images of the protected ares.

$28 million for small companies to invest in technological innovation

The Brazilian Service to Support Micro and Small Enterprises (Sebrae) will invest R$28 million (around US$18 million) on businesses with less than R$2.4 million yearly turnover interested in developing technological innovation for themselves. The 17 thousand companies to receive this investment should focus on technological capability, increased productivity and competitiveness, corrections in work patterns, improvement in product quality and cost reduction. The announcement was made by Edson Ferman at the Local Agents of Innovation (ALI) conference last week (22 June 2010).

Innovation in Local Productive Arrangements, thank you EU!

The European Union is promoting a seminar in Brazilian's capital, Brasilia, where the goal of improving the regional development of Brazil by introducing the concept of Local Productive Arrangements (or APL in Portuguese). Many public institutions have to be involved to standardise the communication between political groups/parties and the companies involved. The EU will help teaching the Brazilian politician the best ways to increment productivity through innovation. This is the second stage of the project "Incentives for Innovation in Local Productive Arrangements" and is the first great step for enriching poor regions that never had the necessary support and where the local councils never knew what to do to improve this situation. (Sounds like it is going to take a long time to cover all wholes...)

Governamental organs involved:

• Standing Working Group (GTP)
• Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade (MDIC)
• Ministry of Integration (MI)
• Ministry of Planning, Budget and Management (PBM)
• Ministry of Science and Technology (MCT)
• Directorate General for Regional Policy of the European Commission (DGRegio)

Spain is partnering with Brazil for innovation development

According to one of my previous posts, $41 billions spent in tech development and research, Brazil is jumping in front of the vanguard of the nanotechnology in South America, and Spain - clever - jumped to share good results. Biotechnology, Renewable Energy, Process Engineering, Nanotechnology and Health are the targeted subjects for this joint effort pro innovation.

Yes the Ministry of Science and Innovation (Micinn), from Spain, and CNPq (National Council for Scientific and Technological Development), from Brazil, are now in partnership where Spanish researchers that can now be funded with up to R$3 million (around US$1.8 mi) of the FNDCT, National Fund for Scientific and Technological Development of Brazil.

All projects must be presented with a responsible PhD with experience with international cooperation, which is good for improving Brazilian know-how on cooperative technological research and development with international financial advantage as the one of the main goals.

Brazil opens the first Research Centre of the Sea

Opened the first Research Centre of the Sea of Brazil in Sao Vicente (in the state of SP). The goal of this centre are:

• Develop research to improve petroleum and gas exploration over deep sea
• Oceanography studies
• Development of the salt industry
• Seaport logistics

The Ministry of Science and Technology is responsible for the initiative and the acting minister thanks that to the budget directed to his ministry, which is the biggest of all ministries. 30 researchers from Unesp will be working full time on this centre and many students will be involved through out the projects' developments.

I don't really know what oceanography means and what they do and if you can, dear reader, post your opinion herein. Ok?

Brazil and Angola will exchange technology and scientific knowledge as for 2010

Brazil and Angola formalized the intentions of exchanging scientific data for the sake of the Join Declaration of Strategic Partnership. Graduation students are also invited to cross the ocean to run experiments and studies on the other country, enforcing the common tie these two countries have with each other:

• The language of both is Portuguese
• The African Savannah are very similar to the Brazilian Cerrado (opening opportunity for the Embrapa - Brazilian Enterprise for Farming Research - to do some work on the old Continent)
• Brazil and Angola were the first 2 economies to come out of the recent global recession

 The agreement goes around these subjects:

• Farming (Angola has a huge unexplored potential)
• Technology and knowledge transfer from both sides

Some more data:

• Brazil exported around US$1.47 billion in 2009 to Angola only
• Brazil offered US$2.5 billion as export credit to Angola, making this country the biggest beneficiary of this type of credit in the world, the Export Warranty Fund.

$360 million in educational infrastructure

Infrastructure of public institutions, Universities and research labs will get R$360 million from Proinfra, the project approved by Brazilian congress was put together by Financier of Studies and Projects with funds from the National Fund for Scientific and Technological Development (FNDCT / CT-infra).

See the official call for institutions to apply for collecting this investment (in Portuguese).

Brazilian Society for the Advancement of Science, the meeting of the year

62nd Annual Meeting of the Brazilian Society for the Advancement of Science this year is going to be in Rio Grande do Norte between 25 and 30 of July. This edition's theme is "Marine Science: Heritage for the Future" and the meeting will count with 69 conferences, 61 round tables and symposia, 11 meetings and six special sessions. The candidates for the presidency (voting occurs in October/2010) were invited to discuss the main issues like the fishing communities (so abundant in Brazil), bio-security of genetically modified food, virtual/remote education programs, the Olympic project and much more. Check out the official agenda in Portuguese

$41 billions spent in tech development and research. Brazil News

Yoopy! Lets celebrate IT investments made on the last 4 years in Brazil had generated exciting results for us, the scientific community.

The results presented on the PACTI 2010 are astonishing!

PACTI stands for "Plan of Action on Science, Technology and Innovation" and it is a scientific document that orients governmental expenses on technology and science. It is responsible for RS$41 billions (around US$25 billion) spent in 4 years time (since 2007) and the outcomes are great and refreshing for the whole Brazilian society.

For example:
Biotechnology results:

• 69 new medicaments developed for pharmaceutical purposes of which some are offered for free to the population. Mainly for tuberculosis, malaria, leishmaniasis, schistosomiasis, Chagas disease (project known as BIOINOVA).
• 49 projects were created to execute basic research on cellular therapy
• Innovation of manufacturing processes of biotechnology products (Rotas Biotecnológicas project);

Nanotechnology results:

• Construction of 6 labs for research (among them are CETENE, CBPF, LRNano and C2Nano)
• Financial and technical support to 175 basic research projects in 2009
• 376 scientists were trained and capacitate

Information Technology and Communication:

• RS$324 million spent on the CEITEC centre

Public Health outcomes:

• RS$819 millions spent on IT services for public hospitals and on statistical systems

More subjects helped by PACTI's development strategies:

• Biofuel
• Research on equipments for public energy distribution
• Transfer of technology to make family agro-businesses more competitive against big agro-companies
• Investment on "SpeciesLink", a biodiversity program for maintenance of rare or endanger ecosystems
• RS$140 millions spend on Antarctic research
• Climate change
• The Amazon conservation
• Improvement of the Spacial and Nuclear Energy programs
• ... and much more.

For the full report, please read the published PDF. (In Portuguese)

Investment Directed to IT development using governmental fund, good news to me

Information Technology is now part of the Brazilian government's investments, R$12 millions (about US$8 million) will go into technology specialization programs (to expand applied knowledge of IT supply chain) and into information management systems research (for managing large volumes of data, distributed computing, modelling complex systems, impacts of the transition from silicon to new technologies, universal access and more). This is a public program and the projects presented will have to match one of the selected categories and depending on the are of knowledge the amount of investment varies.

The involved departments are the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq / MCT), National Fund for Scientific and Technological Development (FNDCT / CT-Info) and the Brazilian Computer Society (SBC)