Group items tagged

The Fórum da Liberdade (Liberty Summit) took place at the PUC-RS in Porto Alegre on past Monday and Tuesday. The event has been happening for 25 years to talk on issues related to economic freedom, entrepreneurial ideas, and individual rights. This year's summit discussed "2037: que Brasil será o seu?" ( 2037: how your Brazil will be like). Fórum da Liberdade is held yearly by the Brazilian Institute of Business Studies (IEE).

Brazil is on the spotlight for IT companies like never before. During Business IT Exhibition and Conference South American (BITS), a South American version of Cebit held in Porto Alegre, many major companies announced a set of plans for Brazil and other emerging markets...

Author of the books Guide to the Perfect Latin American Idiot and The Return of The Idiot, Álvaro Vargas Llosa is a well-know figure in Latin American economics and politics. An individual investor and member of The Washington Post Writers Group, Vargas Llosa is recognized by his critical view of statism and political dirigisme. At the Liberty Summit (Fórum da Liberdade), which was held in Porto Alegre, in a panel about the future of Brazil and lessons from other countries, Vargas Llosa remarked that the South American country has very good advantages compared to others...

A German immigrant in Brazil, Johann Heinrich Gerdau, or just João Gerdau, bought a nail factory in the Southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre in 1901. Shortly prior to the death of João Gerdau, his son, Hugo Gerdau started to manage the company. It seems a very simple story, but when Hugo Gerdau took over the nail factory in 1917, the expansion was so signficant that this is considered one of the major facts contributing to the end of the state of Rio Grande do Sul dependency of imports. Later in 1946, it was time to pass the control of the business to Curt Johannpeter, Hugo's brother-in-law. Two years later, they were buying a steel mill called Siderúrgica Riograndense. Therefore, the Gerdau group was created. And that was the first step to Jorge Gerdau Johannpeter to become years ahead Brazil's king of steel and the largest long steel producer in the Americas.

What people will be talking about on Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, and LinkedIn? Bernardo Huberman, director of HP Labs Social Computing Resarch Group, claims to have created a formula to predict people's behavior tendencies on social networks. The physicist introduced the formulas in a lecture in the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul, in Porto Alegre, Brazil. One of his main tools is Twitter. According to Huberman, the level of attention a subject gains at the microblog determines how much it would spread and how big the revenue can be

In a summit held this week at the Israeli Federation of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, in Porto Alegre, many experts talked about the policies which boosted technology in Israel over the last years and how it could be implemented to improve the lives of Brazilians as well. The deputy secretary of Science, Technology, and Innovation of Rio Grande do Sul, Ghissia Hauser, stated that much of the technologies use in irrigation in Israel not just to avoid the waste of water, but to improve productivity in agriculture.

José Cezar Martins is a venture capitalist in southern Brazil. His company, Paradoxa, is based in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, and was designed to explore the startups of the region and "providing the resources and network to make a start-up a high-value asset". In an exclusive interview to Timizzer, Martins explains his experiences, including failures, the risks of co-investments and investments on innovation, the environment of innovation in southern Brazil, and starting a business with "little or no money". The entrepreneur thinks that the potential of his region, especially on intellectual capability, is underestimated by investors.

XP Investimentos is the biggest brokerage in Brazil not related to any bank or larger financing institution. The path the company encountered to achieve this status had a lot of tools and shortcuts. It started in the middle of the market environment full of fears in 2001, the year of 9/11 terrorist attack. Guilherme Benchimol and Marcelo Maisonnave began as autonomous investment agents in Porto Alegre. Their office was a room of just 40 square meters. The computers used in the business were a little lagged because it was bought from a lan house.

A survey released by the Center for Strategic and Competitive Thinking, from the University of Rosario, Bogotá, and the consultancy firm Cepet, says that São Paulo is the best city of Latin America considering opportunities of investments. The study ranked the top ten in the region. São Paulo was highlighted because of the size of its metropolitan area, the volume traded at the exchange Bovespa, and the huge number of multinationals in the region. Santiago (in Chile), which left the first spot from last year, places second, but continues to be very visible to international investors, says the study. Mexico city remained on the third place