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High tech oasis in the dry badlands

Campina Grande, in the inward of Paraíba, is cited in American magazine as one of the emergent technological hubs of the planet

by Sérgio Adeodato

"The first attempt was to raffle an ox, later sacrificed in a barbecue degusted by the local society. Months later, one zero-kilometer bettle. After successive campaigns, beneficient bingo and teas, the leaders of the movement had reached the objective: to obtain US$ 500,000 to give a computer to the city of Campina Grande, in the dry badlands of Paraíba.

The ultramodern machine arrived in 1967. It was the first computer in the Brazilian Norhteast - starting point for investments in the formation of professors in the region. Gadget, today scrap iron in the bilges of the Federal University of Paraíba (UFPB), became a revolution's relic.

Famous for organizing one of the biggest parties of Saint João in the country, Campina Grande is today a prosperous oasis. Not accurately for the Saint John's party tradition, but for the technology. Cited by the American magazine Newsweek as one of the most promising technological hubs of the world, the city hosts a dozen computer and electronics industries and has local income average per year twice the Brazilian Northeast norm.

The university is the cradle of the technological hub. The State of São Paulo has a professor with master or doctor degree by 1.356 inhabitants. In the installations of the UFPB in Campina Campina work 416 masters and doctors - one for 865 inhabitants. More of the half of them is in the areas of engineering and computing. In these sectors, 250 new professionals graduate annually. 470 attend a post-graduation course. The local market does not absorb all the work force, exported to the capitals. But it does not lack creativity to develop projects and to diminish the exodus of "brains". Since 1997, the course of "entrepreunership" became mandatory in the resume of computer science for the UFPB undregraduate students. More than 1,400 pupils already had passed for the training and 13 of them today occupy the rooms of the Poligene, nursery of software companies and jobs kept by the federal government.

Rodrigo Figueiredo de Albuquerque, 22 years old, will receive the degree of computer science in the next week and works in the automation of bakeries. "We are changing the head of the traders", affirms the researcher, that developed a software to reduce wastefulnesses and to control with efficiency the establishments. The plan of Rodrigo is to invoice R$ 13,000 monthly with the partner, William Dantas, 25 years old, colleague of the university. In the room to the side, electronic engineer Rosângela Vilar, 47 years old, moved from Maranhão to Campina Campina. By the Internet, the system analyst met the carioca Marcos Espínola, 34 years old, who moved to Paraíba two years ago. They got married, and had started together the company Solution Info, directed toward information collection over the Internet.

"The companies are born already thinking about conquering other markets", explains the engineer Alexandre Moura, 40 years old, owner of the Light Infocon Tecnologia S/A, the first software company installed in Campina Grande, in 1983. From Pernambuco, moved to the city in fetching of good level education. Today it uses 30 technicians and has a invoice of R$ 3,5 million per year. It produces software for management of sound, image and text. "In technology, it's important to be close to the abundant work force, not consuming market", says the entrepreneur. The abundance of professionals attracts big companies consumers of technology that generate more than US$ 100 million annual invoice in Campina Grande. Coteminas keeps in the city the biggest textile park of Brazil. In the decade of 40, the city was the biggest commercial hub of cotton in the world, behind only of Liverpool, in England. The culture was decimated by the plague of the boll weevil. By the agricultural technology, the production of plume is being retaken. And a piece of news: ten companies had been congregated in trust to produce clothes using cotton that already is born colorful. Technician of the Brazilian Company of Farming Research in Campina Grande had geneticaly improved the quality of staple fibres, making possible the industrial processing in wiring machines. Ecological for not using inks, the clothes confectioned in the Paraíba will have the stamp of the Greenpeace. The first remittances of pyjamases and t-shirts will be exported in the second semester of this year.

The city becomes cosmopolitan. In the Bodocongó neighborhood, the Street João Julião Martins shelters the families of the biggest part of the 16 professors from India. Ramama Tantravahi, a remote sensor specialist, is coordinating the courses of graduation in the university. His wife, Arundhati, has an English school. His daughter, Pallavi, 21 years old, is in the last year of computer science course, and is an intern in a software company. The academic culture matches the families. The neighbor Hans Gheyi, 59 years old, after working in european and American universities, chose Campina Grande. Researcher of methods to recoup ground ruined by the salinization, common in the drylands, the professor found ample field of work in Paraíba.

UFPB collects prizes. In April, the pupil Allysson Diniz, 22 years old, was the first national place in Provão 2000 in Mechanics Engineering. In the same month, five pupils of Electric Engineering had gained from Motorola R$ 40.000,00 for the design of an intelligent antenna. The device reduces the impact of the cellular electromagnetic waves in the human body and magnifies the useful life of the battery. In briefing, the technology generated in the northeastern wasteland will be available in cellulars of the entire world."

Light Infocon Tecnologia S/A