Governor Romeu Zema and founder of RenovaBR Eduardo Mufarej were present at the event, talking about govtech investments with Ron Bouganim, a partner in the Govtech Fund, the first venture capital fund exclusively for government technology startups.
"We do not work to produce and develop, but for the bureaucracy. Since the Empire." The Governor of Minas Gerais, Romeu Zema (New), made a hard review of the Brazilian production system at the first Brazil-Silicon Valley conference, promoted by students at Stanford University, this week in Palo Alto, California.
Among other topics, the governor also stressed that there is a need to try more business in Brazil, and suggested support for the release of gambling as a way to create jobs and generate profit.
Zema, unlike most of the other Brazilians present - who presented themselves mostly to their countrymen - made a point of speaking in Portuguese, not in English, leading one of his interlocutors, Ron Bougamin, from the Govtech Fund, to need translation simultaneously. When Bougamin made fun of having to hear Zema speaking in Portuguese, the governor seems to have given a laugh.
"The previous management of Minas had stopped a project in which 90 million Reais were spent. I'll take it back." Zema complained about how public investments in Brazil are guided by interests, so to speak, strangers, who enjoy more friendships and political ties, not the population. "They are obstacles and end up hampering."
The politician emphasized that there is no "competition in the States" which "hinders the entry of external partners. If someone arrives with a project with a proposal to save 200 million reais per year for Minas, we are not in a position to accept, through the bidding process, the resistance of the functionalism itself, by the culture that opposes more abrupt changes."
Brazil at Silicon Valley aims to foster the ecosystem of national innovation and attract investment to the country. On the part of the public authority, Zema also pointed out, for example, that "transparency is fundamental". He also stressed that it would be necessary to reduce "excesses" of the "Legislative", especially in small cities. On this he said: "We have created a monstrous structure."
Source: GMB / Veja.com
