19-01-2001
Brazil Port Trades Prostitution for Computation

RECIFE, Brazil (Reuters) - At the tender age of 14, Carlos Peixoto started rowing prostitutes out to ships docked in the port of Recife, earning enough money to buy two homes.

These days few ships call at old Recife and most of the prostitutes have migrated to busier moorings. Peixoto, now 27 and worried about his future, has enrolled in a free computer course to prepare for the exam for a seafarer's license.

Like Peixoto, the 465-year-old port city needs to be recycled and technology could pave the way to a new life. Government officials have teamed up with local technology leaders to lay the foundations for the "Digital Port'' where a homegrown information technology industry may flourish.

A South American Silicon Valley in the works? More like a Software Delta situated on the lush, tropical coast of northeastern Brazil. "A chip factory costs $2 billion and we cannot afford that, but we do have lots of garages with lots of kids writing software,'' said Silvio Meira, director of the Recife Center of Advanced Studies and Systems (CESAR), whose garage is its brightly colored laboratory.

Created seven years ago at the Federal University of Pernambuco to link the academic field with the technology market, CESAR today is considered a world-class innovator, creating software solutions for the likes of the United Nations and converting meek students into bold entrepreneurs.

Meira, at 45, looks like one of the kids in his surfer attire. Now he and other fortysomethings -- intellectuals, artists and former hippies who met while rallying against the military dictatorship in the 1970s -- think they can open the doors on the Digital Port by early 2002. "It may not work, but no part of it is original. There are pieces of Bangalore, Israel, Ireland, Buenos Aires, Bilbao, Canary Wharf...'' Meira said, enumerating successful technology clusters and urban renewal projects around the globe.

MANGROVE BEAT OR BYTE?

If the Digital Port takes off, it will not be the first time Recife achieves world-class status. Back in 1640, it boasted the highest per capita income in the Western world as a major seaport and sugar exporting center under Dutch occupation.

The city housed the first Jewish synagogue in the Americas and a slew of Roman Catholic monasteries dedicated to higher learning. It was the springboard for such illustrious Brazilians as anti-slavery crusader Castro Alves and newspaper magnate Assis Chateaubriand. In more modern times, Recife has drawn musical cognoscenti around the world with its original take on regional music known as "Mangue Beat'' or the Mangrove Beat, spearheaded by the late Chico Science and by Fred Zero Quatro.

But the city on the mangroves -- "the Brazilian Venice'' -- has been struggling since the sugar industry ran into competition from Sao Paulo state 30 years ago and a massive deep water port opened down the coast.

"The reconversion of our economy is our greatest challenge,'' said Claudio Marinho, Pernambuco state Secretary of Science and Technology and a main mover in the Digital Port with Meira.

Conditions are ripe for new ventures in Brazil as the economy recovers from its crushing 1999 currency devaluation to grow at a healthy rate of around 4 percent annually. And even before serious work gets under way for the Digital Port, Recife is already reverberating with the clanging and sawing of construction and clinking of glasses in the new outdoor cafes.

"This island surrounded by sea and river is the cradle of the city's growth,'' said Leonardo Guimaraes, an architect working on the project. "It is from here that we became known in the world so it makes sense to put our Digital Port here.''

Right next to where Peixoto ties up his boat, two warehouses that used to hold sugar and molasses will house CESAR and the state-backed technology incubator Itep, Brazil's second largest. Dilapidated but majestic colonial buildings are under renovation to host a society of software companies. The Port Command will be home to the university information technology facilities.

Private capital -- whether established corporations or Bill Gates wannabes -- is expected to drop anchor around the public flotilla. Even small business is preparing for the computer revolution on streets that once were famous for their brothels.

Vitor Teixeira, recently arrived from Portugal, has opened Giardino Cyber-bar where clients can surf the Net while sipping a cold draft beer. "Up to now I've only been able to survive with tourists, but Brazilians take well to novelties.''

TRICKLE DOWN TO THE SHANTYTOWN

Recife is a city of contrasts where shantytowns straddling raw sewage rub up against pretty seaside neighborhoods and crumbling, chaotic schools compete for space with sophisticated shopping centers.

Pouring public money into a technology cluster where basic sanitation and schooling are lacking may seem superfluous to some, but government officials say they cannot wait for the city's social problems to be solved first.

"If you wait, then you are going to have dual illiteracy, traditional and digital,'' Marinho said. He and Meira hold firm to the belief that the technological know-how of the Digital Port will trickle down to the shantytowns and reduce the social divide that cuts across the city of 1.4 million.

The government has earmarked $17 million for the project, of which $2.5 million will go to a technology training fund. Meira dreams of a programming school that can churn out 100 graduates a month, who can go on to earn $500 a month or five times Brazil's minimum wage of $100.

Port proponents also aim to reverse the local brain drain. Twelve CESAR alumnae work at Microsoft headquarters and others have gone to top tech slots at Cisco, AT&T and France Telecom.

The relaxed atmosphere of northeastern Brazil, postcard perfect palm-lined beaches, year-round warm weather, a thriving cultural life and a renowned street Carnival may even entice a few foreigners.

"People are the essential asset,'' said Meira. "Money is not the problem anymore, that is already coming.''