RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Microsoft announced on Tuesday, October 20th, a set of initiatives called ‘Microsoft Mais Brasil’ (“Microsoft Plus Brazil”), conducted in partnership with the government, with the goal of broadening the use of technology in Brazil and helping the country achieve a sustainable and fully digital “economic rebound“.
Among them is the donation of all the company’s cloud services to the South and Southeast regions and also a joint effort with government actions to provide 5.5 million courses for unemployed Brazilians. The initiatives were developed in partnership with the Ministries of Economy and Science, Technology, and Innovation (MCTI).
‘Microsoft Mais’ will be based on three pillars: enabling the digital economy, education, and sustainable impact. To solve the first issue, the company stated that a new data center will be inaugurated in Rio de Janeiro.
To date, Microsoft had only one center for Azure cloud technology in Brazil, in São Paulo, founded six years ago. “These new establishments will create hundreds of jobs and allow companies to benefit from our services. A new space for us to provide a faster technology that can effectively transfer data became necessary,” said Tânia Consentino, CEO of Microsoft in Brazil, in an online event. “We have 25 thousand partners in Brazil and as you expand the infrastructure, you expand the services and this improves the whole production chain,” she says.
In terms of education, the focus is to help the Ministry of Economy in its mission of helping to train 25 million Brazilians in order to reduce the rate of unemployment in the country, which in the second quarter this year recorded a rate of 11.8 percent.
Partnerships were also formed with SESI and SENAI educational institutions. “We want to attract youths to the exact sciences area, but we also want to qualify the existing labor force, which improves our global labor capacity and increases the companies’ productivity. We have a positive economic outlook for the country. Today we are behind in the competitiveness ranking in the area of Information Technology,” says Consentino. According to Microsoft, Brazil trains 44,000 I.T. professionals per year, while the market demands approximately 70,000.
The third pillar, which aims to use technology to help Brazilian sustainability, will be based on an Artificial Intelligence (AI) service that will be able to forecast fires and deforestation in the Amazon forest, in cooperation with mining company Vale and the Institute of Man and Environment of the Amazon (Imazon). “With the help of this technology, the Imazon will be able to identify critical areas to help government bodies to protect against deforestation and preserve the forest,” said the company in a statement sent by e-mail.
According to Carlos da Costa, Special Secretary of Productivity, Employment and Competitiveness, Microsoft was chosen by the government for this partnership based on four factors. “We found at Microsoft several competitive points in relation to other companies. The first is that everything will be free, something Brazil needs in a moment of crisis like the one we are experiencing. Secondly, we wanted something durable. Thirdly, we wanted to have a sufficient volume. And fourth, we needed to adjust all the technology to the Brazilian particularities – and a flexible platform”, explains Costa.
In addition to its partnership with Brazil, Microsoft also announced at the event on Tuesday that it would launch an “app that will enhance the experience of people with poor eyesight or blind”.
All new developments should be implemented by 2021.
Source: Exame