José Carlos Maldonado, president of SBC; Edmundo Oliveira, Brasscom Institutional Relations director and Virgilio Almeida, vice-president of SBC

On March 3rd and 4th the Brazilian Computer Society (SBC) held the II Workshop on the Challenges for Brazilian Computing, in Manaus. Director of Institutional Relations at Brasscom, Edmundo Oliveira, opened the program of presentations, talking about the challenges facing the Information and Communication Technology industry. ?The purpose of the event was to create an opportunity to debate a possible convergence of action, with special attention on technological innovation and development?, says Oliveira.

To focus their efforts and to establish a mechanism for cooperation, Brasscom and SBC came to an understanding as expressed in their Joint Declaration, which follows below:

Joint Brasscom ? SBC Declaration

Manaus, March 3rd 2009

Brasscom (the Brazilian Association of Information Technology and Communication Companies) and SBC (the Brazilian Computer Society) have decided to focus private sector and scientific community efforts to promote the excellence of Brazil?s Information and Communication Technology. This is founded on the belief that in so doing they shall make an important contribution to increasing productivity, wealth generation, job creation, and the competitiveness of the Brazilian economy.
They also agree that Brazil is well positioned technically to become one of the leading centers in the supply of services, software, hardware and solutions to the world, in particular in the context of increased demand for alternatives in outsourcing and offshoring. ICT service exports are now undergoing rapid expansion in the global economy, generating business that has grown at 20% a year. In two years the market shall be worth approximately US$ 100 billion.
Brazil has the eighth largest domestic ICT market in the world, but its industry has not yet become as relevant in terms of international market share. Increasing this share, according to the objectives established in the policies defined by the industry with the Brazilian government, is a permanent challenge. It is of strategic importance for Brazil to dominate computing on various levels, from services and theory to the physical implementation of systems, which increasingly require dedicated chips. To achieve these targets, integrated efforts are required by public and private bodies, such as: the identification and solution of challenges in innovation and technical and scientific development; increased competitiveness of companies, and the country as a whole; the training of skilled professionals at all levels in the timeframe necessary and of the quality required by the market and the human resources training chain; the promotion of companies big enough to compete globally and open to innovation; and the promotion of Brazil?s ICT brand worldwide.
Brasscom and SBC have thus decided to establish an agenda that responds to these challenges, beginning with:
- Debate of how the big challenges in computing listed by SBC interact with the priorities and needs of Brazil?s IT industry, with a view to the development of common R&D projects, and
- Mobilization of private and public institutions and robust resources to speed up the training of IT professionals, involving the whole human resource training cycle, which respond to the needs of Brazilian industry, linked to the various needs of the market which, even in the global economic crisis, shall continue to expand and which will demand specialized professionals.
Brasscom and SBC have also decided to establish a regular and periodic consultation mechanism in order to develop a common agenda on work, research, development and innovation.