Interview: Guilherme Calheiros, Director of Innovation and Competitiveness at Porto Digital

Executive talks about Creative Economy and explains the goals and achievements of the northeastern initiative

In a changing situation, technology and culture came together to create Porto Digital, a technology park in Pernambuco founded in 2000, in response to local problems and also to the economic crisis of the 90s. The project was installed in the historic center of Recife and promoted the revitalization heritage and economic development. 
 
The Pernambuco technology park brings together small and medium-sized local technology companies, as well as national and multinational companies, with a wide variety of software development and creative economy businesses: artificial intelligence, hospital management, accounting management, games, embedded software, among others. products and services. Currently, the main partners are: MCTI – Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, Ministry of Culture, Sebrae – Pernambuco, BNDES, CNPq and Finep.    
 
Industry, government and academia came together to establish an Information Technology Policy for the region. “Each of these vertices entered the project for complementary reasons. The university needed to strengthen the human capital that did not remain in the state, to promote the retention of the talent that was formed. Companies lost business, as the largest IT companies operating in Pernambuco moved to the Rio – São Paulo axis. The public authorities, on the other hand, were interested in changing the state's economic platform, until then centered on sugar and the textile industry", explains Guilherme Calheiros, Director of Innovation and Competitiveness at Porto Digital, who gave an interview to Portal ABES, explaining the objectives and achievements of the Pernambuco enterprise.
 
– What are the main challenges for entrepreneurs who want to work in businesses focused on the Creative Economy?

When we set out to open a front for action in the Creative Economy, we realized that creative people needed support in four axes, which are the basis of Portomídia (our Center for Entrepreneurship in the Creative Economy): education, entrepreneurship, experimentation and exhibition.
In education, there are technical bottlenecks that need to be eliminated. For this, entrepreneurs need to attend courses that meet the demands of the market and continuously train themselves, as this is a market that advances technologically all the time. In entrepreneurship, we have our creative business incubator. At this point, assistance comes through consulting, training and advisory services in the business area.
In experimentation, we have a structure with state-of-the-art technologies, which would be very expensive for a company to have individually. They are post-production rooms, state-of-the-art equipment, some with few or no correspondents in Brazil. On display, we have a digital art gallery, which enables interactivity with the public – the final consumer of the Creative Economy.
 
– What are the events scheduled in 2014 to publicize the projects of Porto Digital companies?
Porto Digital does not hold events to publicize its companies, but they are always invited to exhibit their experiences in third-party events – whether regional or national.
 
 – Can you name some successful cases of the companies that participate in Porto Digital?
Mr. Plot, incubated in Portomídia, is a spin-off of the fourth dimension (ICT company with 6 years in the market), which exists since 2011. The company was officially founded (CNPJ) in 2013 and is still in the investment phase, with capital 100% own. With the first season of the TV show Bita e os Animais ready, the first contracts have already begun. The first customers are Sony Music and Discovery Kids. A little over 100 thousand reais was billed for a license to be shown on TV and advance DVD royalties. The expectation is to close 2014 with a turnover of R$ 500 thousand.
 
Joy Street, a game developer, is a company specializing in the design, development and operation of digital learning environments based on social interaction and collaborative digital games. It is an intelligence company capable of providing a unique learning experience with dialogue and fun. It created the Digital Games and Education Olympiad/Joy Escola, a playful learning platform for high school and elementary school content, made up of a gamified social network, missions based on a narrative, tournaments and monitoring services. Challenges are presented in the form of minigames, textual games and riddles (questions based on the ENEM competence matrix).
 
Neurotech, developer of artificial intelligence projects, is a pioneer company in Brazil in the development of advanced solutions for automating the entire decision cycle in credit, collection, risk and fraud operations. Created in 2000 by researchers from the Federal University of Pernambuco, Neurotech makes innovation, high technical competence and a close relationship with customers and partners the pillars of its performance in the market. Our extensive experience is supported by the development of more than 500 solutions over the years in the credit and risk market, always using the best practices, processes and technological tools to build decision support solutions.
 
– What are the functions of incubators?
The CAIS incubators in Porto and Portomídia have the main objective of promoting innovative entrepreneurship in Pernambuco and Brazil.
CAIS do Porto supports nascent Information and Communication Technology (ICT) enterprises aimed at developing solutions to real problems in the productive sectors of the state of Pernambuco, located in the countryside or in the capital. The Portomídia incubator, on the other hand, supports the structuring of nascent creative economy ventures (multimedia, digital games, cine-video-animation, design, music and photography – all with intensive use of technology), in addition to contributing to projecting Recife as a center of reference in this segment.
 
Name Porto Digital projects for 2014?
This year, our main plan is to implement the car sharing service. Last year, we implemented bicycle sharing, which was a success and served as an example for other programs throughout the state of Pernambuco. O car sharing is part of Porto Digital's urban mobility project, which aims to improve traffic in Recife, starting with Bairro do Recife, where we are located (to learn more about the car sharing project, click here).
 

Porto Digital in numbers