Jaguaré wants to be São Paulos Silicon Valley
O Estado de S. Paulo 07/22/10
After eight years of studies, plans and promises, the State Government officially launched yesterday the works for the center of the Jaguaré-based Technological Park of São Paulo, right next to the University of São Paulo (USP), in the west side of the capital. The purpose of the project is to develop a great complex of innovation and technology in the region, which should also help redevelop areas that have deteriorated around the university grounds.The Secretariat of State for Development will invest R$ 10.6 million (US$ 5.9 million), in this first phase, in the adapting of warehouses around Avenida Engenheiro Billings, in an area of nearly 46 thousand square meters. The center of the Technological Park will have three blocks - the first two will receive a business incubator for technology-based companies with capacity for 52 undertakings, and the third block will feature a 158 seat auditorium. The work is scheduled to be delivered in the first half of 2011.
The technological center will allow businesses to have greater contact with the 5 thousand doctors-professors and 40 thousand graduate students that circulate in the University Campus. Nevertheless, the center of the Park is only the beginning. Besides integrating entities such as the USP, the Institute of Technological Researches (IPT), the Institute of Energy and Nuclear Research (Ipen) and the Butantan Institute in a same center, the idea of the State Government is to build, until the first half of 2012, a Technology College (Fatec) of the Paula Souza Center in the complex. The work is budgeted at R$ 21 million (US$ 11.7 million). To complete the Park, another piece of land with 46 thousand square meters should receive a 30-story building, constructed by the private initiative, to shelter technology, research and innovation companies.
"We want companies that support research and innovation", says Luciano de Almeida, Secretary of State for the Development. The Government expects, therefore, to bring the companies closer to the USP and cause the knowledge acquired in the labs to be turned into products and services - such as occurred in the United States, with Stanford University, which gave rise to the Silicon Valley and to a good part of the American IT firms.
In 2007, the income generated by the sector represented 12% of the national agricultural activity and it represented growth of 2.5% compared to the prior year, representing 2% of the Gross Domestic Product of the State.
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