$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)

Young Scientist Award: Improving Environmental Impact of Energy Usage

R$150 thousand (around US$90.000) are destined to the 24º Young Scientist Award promoted by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development of Brazil (CNPq / MCT), the company Gerdau and the Roberto Marinho Foundation (FRM). This is a pretty pathetic prize for both, the company and the foundation in question, because Gerdau is one of the top mineral extract (iron and other metals) companies in the World and FRM owns the 5th biggest television company in the World, Globo. I think they just need to do something with the billions they make so they can justify not paying taxes (or at least all of it).

Nonetheless it is something worthy to tell to my avid readers. The focus of this initiative this year (2010) is to challenge the junior scientists to reduce the environmental impacts caused by energy consumption. There are several categories that students can fit on and that makes this project interesting: young entrepreneurs with ideas to change the World (for a better one). This is the best outcome of this project, not the money, and that is why it is in its 24th edition.

I hope someone gives an idea that really help and that one of these companies assume the responsibility to execute it, going a bit further than just opening a public challenge with their spare change.

Fisherman now can use the help of satellite

To discover the best areas for fishing you should ask a professional. Here is the best one, a satellite. Yes, Brazil is launching one in partnership with Argentina. Back in 1996 Spain wanted to be part of it as well, but ended up dropping out and Argentina went into a recession that lasted more than 10 years. Now they are finally ready and the 1.2 tons super-geek computer is almost ready to be floating in space searching for the best places for fishing, exploring oil; to analyze the weather and to help evaluate places where oil leak can happen. The Program Launchers Cruzeiro do Sul, coordinated by the Department of Aerospace Science and Technology of Brazil (AEB) is a great news for all the scientific community and fisherman.

Source in Portuguese: http://mundoemcolapso.blogspot.com/2010/06/satelite-argentino-brasileiro-auxiliara.html

Nanotechnology prize for Mercosul researchers

The South-American Common Market (MERCOSUL) has launched the Mercosul Award of Science and Technology 2010 (note the favicon, this site was made with Joomla. Quite depressing for a web developer to see a site from the UNESCO like that. The intentions are good though.) Its focus is nanotechnology and the winning project must be able to help scientific development of any or all countries involved (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela). The prize categories are: Scientific Initiation (U$2,000 for the winning team), University Student (U$3,500), Young Scientist (U$5,000) and Integration (U$10,000). Apart from the money the organization also offers a trophy, honourable mention board and publication of work in a book.

Latin American participating in RoboCup 2010

14 July 2010


News Update: Brazilian team has got to semifinals of the Robocut 2010.




Brazil is the only Latin American country classified to the RoboCup 2010 in Singapore. Mexico was participating but for some reason didn't made its way to the "Simulation League" of artificial intelligence, not hardware robots. Iran seems to be leading the main categories along side with China and Japan. I'm cheering for Brazil, of course, and I hope they get as good in virtual football/soccer as they are in the real one. The competition start this month (June/2010) on the 19th.

Tax Incentives for Technological Innovation - Brazilian secret weapon?

According to the new Tax incentive law (Incentivos Fiscais da Lei 11.196/2005), known as the "Law of the good will" any company in Brazil can immediately enjoy its benefits if there are technological research under development. This is quite a complex issue that involves many rules and laws but the benefits for the country are clear: in 2006 0.09% of the Brazilian GDP were coming from research and development products and technologies, whereas in 2008 it increased to 0.30%. It was a real gain of more then 1 billion Brazilian Real (around 650 million dollars) in 2008 and the predictions are quite optimistic for the current time.

Take a look at the official - translated - website.

Environment Education Results, measuring the Amazon impact

Many actions are now taking place the educational system of the towns and cities with the Amazon forest. On the 15th July 2010 the First Show Of Experiences In Environmental Education will open for the public to see what researchers, teachers and students are doing and the objective is to propiciate what is been done that the results achieved. The National Institute of Amazonian Research(Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia -Inpa/MCT) is the responsible for this show and has been eveluating environmental efforts for more than 15 year on the Amazon region.

Official Google Blog: Google Apps highlights – 6/4/2010

Official Google Blog: Google Apps highlights – 6/4/2010

$80 million dollars invested in research

Again Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) is playing its part. 120 millions Brazilian Real is being placed for research on ALL scientific knowledge fields. Partnering with National Fund for Scientific and Technological Development (Fundo Nacional de Desenvolvimento, Científico e Tecnológico - FNDCT/Fundos Setoriais) this money will be strategically distributed and 30% of it will be directed to the North, North-east or Midwest to consolidate the National System for Technological and Scientific Innovation.


Ignore the next paragraph if you don't want to read my personal opinion:

As a Southern I must, not with pleasure, disclaim that these 3 regions are the most corrupt, politically, in the country and also contribute the least to Brazilian's GDP. Many Southern people like me complaint that as we pay higher and higher taxes, we get less and less support. South and South-east are the economic powerhouses of Brazil - and most of South-America - and we do feel left-out of some national investment programs.

Water: the blue gold!

Projects and products that help water treatment and distribution to the most remote and dry areas of Brazil will receive RS$14 million in investment (around 9 million US dollars). Sustainable use ecosystem protection are the main focus and national institutions interested have until July 17th 2010 to make the proposals which must plan a minimum budget of R$1 million per project. Finep (Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos) is the organ responsible for this investment.

Brazil is calling for science geniuses

21st July 2010

Scholarship will open on the 13th of August 2010 and the focus is in supporting researchers from developing countries. TWAS is calling: China, India, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan and Thailand.

The editorial document can be found in Portuguese at CNPQ.br.


Original post

Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico - CNPq) is partnering with TWAS (The Academy of Sciences for the Developing World - http://www.twas.org/) to promote scholarship programs for PhD and post-PhD students from developing countries. This is the first big step Brazil has made for the last 30 years to improve its 'brain power' and scientific influence. Aggregating geniuses is the best technique that a country can apply to come out of poverty and to guarantee a bright future for all.

Brazilian ChinAfrica phenomenon

Ever hear of the "Brazilian ChinAfrica" moment? Well, it is now. The investment on infra-structure of the North-East is similar to a typical market bubble (like China nowadays) but the current structure of roads, trains, hospitals and police training and equipments is compared to some places in Africa.

The advance of the super-poor into the poor category of Brazilian's North-East region, boosted small and family businesses increasing the power of credit for millions. The recent oil bay discovered by Petrobras, added some money to the left-wing government that gave a nice beautiful first-time home buyers unprecedented credit: any citizen now can fully finance their first home and the government will pay 20% of it. For a flat or house that costs BR$100 thousand, the buyer will pay only BR$80 thousand in fixed instalments funded by one of the government banks, Caixa Economica Federal (Federal Economic Till -- funny name when translated but it makes sense in Portuguese.)

I hear people complaining that they can't find builders and construction professional. That never happened in Brazil.