In recent years, Brazil has been often hailed as a hub for innovation in South America – with some going as far as even saying it is becoming a new “Silicon Valley”, particularly for the developing world.

This designation is due to many factors: government support, private investments by big businesses, and a high number of skilled high-tech workers.

This article will explain why Brazil has been receiving this label and how it has been growing in recent years.

Government Efforts 

Firstly, Brazil has been receiving this label because of the Brazilian government’s effort in recent years to invest in high-tech industries.

For example, in 2012, Brazil’s internet regulator (ANATEL) released regulations designed to make it cheaper and more accessible for companies to launch telecom services.  This regulation stimulated a startup boom in Brazil, which resulted in the creation of over 260 telecommunications companies.

Brazil also announced a “Startup Manifesto” that incentivized entrepreneurs to form high-tech startups and support the government.  The manifesto laid out several objectives for the Brazilian government, such as: making it easier for startups to get financing and simplifying business registration procedures.

As a result, the government won two World Accelerator Awards in 2015 for its efforts to support high-tech startups.  Finally, even private companies are investing in Brazil’s tech industry, such as General Electric (GE) and Facebook.

For example, GE invested $200 million in 2014 to build an innovation center in Rio de Janeiro to develop medical equipment, energy, and transportation technologies.

There are also some success stories of firms from other nations who have moved operations to Brazil due to its low costs and a large workforce.  

More and more people are learning Portuguese to better communicate with engineers and tech companies from Brazil and other Portuguese-speaking countries. Thus, learning to master Portuguese is not a bad idea.

For example, last year, Facebook opened an office in São Paulo responsible for content moderation for Latin America and startup partnerships.  The office plans to hire over 100 people and invest $12 million in the next few years.

Highly Skilled Tech Workers

Secondly, there are many skilled high-tech workers in Brazil capable of working in these industries.

Brazil has been producing many well-trained graduates at public universities, such as the University of São Paulo.  In a recent ranking of the world’s top universities, six Brazilian universities made the list, including the University of São Paulo in 55th place and Universidade Estadual de Campinas in 114th place.

Brazil also has a large pool of engineers who are not working for high-tech companies.  For example, Brazil has an estimated 200,000 engineers who are not working in their profession.

This presents an excellent opportunity for tech companies to hire skilled high-tech workers since they can easily find them in Brazil.

Testbeds of early adopters 

A testbed of plugged-in early adopters helps build a virtuous cycle that attracts more tech start-ups and talented workers to the region.

Brazil is becoming a testbed for new technologies like cloud technology and their place in the global economy.

For example, Rio de Janeiro prided itself by having three Global Challenge Awards receivers last year: the i-Chess program to teach children programming skills; Drishti, a device that helps blind people navigate their surroundings; and 3Doodler, a pen that can draw in three dimensions.

Access to Funds 

For example, Start-up Brasil was created in 2014 by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MCT) and BNDES (Brazil’s National Bank for Economic and Social Development). 

The program offers up to 100% financing for young entrepreneurs creating high-tech startups and gives them access to training and other services.

The program has offered funding for over 1,000 companies as of 2015 and plans to finance another 3,500 by 2016.

It has even extended financing to non-high-tech startups. 

Further information on this can be found in the Top 30 best-funded Brazilian startups 2020, or if you can also see the Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation (MCT) official website for Start-up Brasil. 

Tech Oriented 

The Brazilian economy is also becoming more technologically advanced. There has been a growing number of tech hubs throughout Brazil, such as Campus Party (which invites top tech companies like Google and Intel to host events) and Startup Farm (which is a very successful tech incubator).

For example, three of the top 10 Brazilian start-ups, as ranked by American Business Insider, are located in Campus Party’s technology park.

These hubs offer opportunities for networking and collaborating with other well-known tech professionals.

From a FinTech perspective, Brazil is enjoying more prominence in cryptocurrency-related activities as well as most countries. Many stores in Brazil accept cryptocurrencies, especially bitcoin as payment for goods and services provided.

Additionally, Brazil offers ample opportunities for foreign professionals to develop new technologies there.

 

Conclusion 

As I have mentioned before, Brazil has the largest and most diverse number of graduates and engineers.  

Therefore, many skilled foreign workers would like to work in Brazil because they could get a well-paying job there while speaking their own language when working with Brazilian colleagues.

In summary, Brazil is being hailed as a hub for innovation in South America because of the Brazilian government’s policies and private companies’ investments in tech startups.