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.)