|
At the International Congress of Nanotechnology, Thursday, July 7, the president of the Federation of Industries of the State of São Paulo (Fiesp), Paulo Skaf, officially presented the São Paulo Letter.
In the document the Fiesp identifies nanotechnology as a decisive component of industrial development in the 21st century and proposes joint efforts by companies, universities, and the federal government to develop this field in Brazil.
Nanotechnology involves the research and manipulation of molecules and atoms to create new materials, such as scratch-proof paints and "intelligent" threads and fabrics that repel stains and moisture and don't fade.
The term comes from the prefix "nano," used in the metric scale as a subdivision of the micron, which is in turn a subdivision of the millimeter.
According to the document, the consequences for society and business competition will be "as or more intensive and extensive than those introduced by the surge of information and communication technologies."
The São Paulo Letter proposes several measures including "the mapping of real nanotechnological opportunities in the short, medium, and long run."
They also recommend the expansion, with company participation, of multidisciplinary technical and managerial training, as well as of production infrastructure and knowledge acquisition.
The document does also suggest the formation of strategic partnerships to work out effective cooperation between companies, universities, and research institutes in this field.
Another proposal is the creation and upgrading of adequate financial instruments for the range of initiatives and activities required.
And they finally propose the encouragement of settings favorable to innovative entrepreneurship, especially for incipient companies.
According to the text, "industry must be attentive to this trend, in order to seize the moment and become part of this context."
The letter also stresses that circumstantial difficulties cannot be allowed to delay urgent actions.
The document, which offers suggestions for government policies in this field, was based on the seminar, "Brazil Face-to-Face with Nanotechnology," organized by the Fiesp in conjunction with the Institute of Industrial Development Studies (Iedi) at the Congress of Nanotechnology, which ended Thursday.
ABr - www.radiobras.gov.br
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose. 
The push of vigilante groups in Rio de Janeiro's favelas (shantytowns) in the last three years is the most important and alarming information of the just-released study by the Rio de Janeiro University's Violence Research Center (Nupev-Uerj). 
A dispute over drug trafficking territory in Rio de Janeiro has intensified lately, leaving in its wake unprecedented acts of violence, such as the downing of a police helicopter in the northern zone of the city on October 17. Three policemen died and another two were injured. This event has drawn the attention of the international media, who are raising the issue of public security for the 2016 Olympics to be held in Rio.