I reached into my backpack the other day and found money from six countries. Man, I’ve been everywhere! In coins and bills I had Argentine pesos, Brazilian reais, more pesos from Colombia,  Malaysian ringit, Indian rupees and American dollars. (Somehow the shekels, naira and yuan I’ve collected didn’t make the voyage)

A rolling stone gathers no moss, now it’s time for liftoff!

While the Western world slept, India’s next generation of tech entrepreneurs was meeting to discuss the future of cleantech at Startup Saturday, a monthly event. On the verdant campus of the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore campus, nearly 80 people gathered to talked about the challenges and opportunities of meeting India’s future energy needs through innovation, reducing consumption and even converting human motion and waste into electricity. Bangalore has been one of the world’s startup hotspots for much of the past decade, so it’s not as though the West was unaware of the meeting.  Any meeting at 11 am Bangalore time is the middle of America’s sleeping hours.

Although we got to the event late, I still got to see a couple very interesting presentations. Karthee Madasamy of Qualcomm Ventures (whose list of succesful exits includes PayPal) spoke about cleantech companies in which his firm invests, both in the U.S. and Asia. One of the most shocking revelations of Madasamy’s talk was the opportunities available entrepreneurs who can reduce the power consumption of India’s mobile phone towers. Madasamy said that after the Indian Armed Forces and national rail system, celular phone towers are the number three consumers of diesel fuel in the entire country. Only 10 percent of towers are “off-grid.” Tell me more …

In case I haven’t mentioned it, I’m relocating to Bangalore, India to take a full-time job with a media startup. Moving to India means uprooting my life and literally restarting halfway across the planet. Such is the life of a TechTrotter.

Although I spent much of the summer months in Brazil it’s nice to know that India was never as far away as it seemed. In particular, a soap opera on the Brazil’s most watched network, Globo, helped to create a common link between the two continents. While I wait for my connecting flight to Mumbai in the Brussels International Airport, allow me to tell you about one of my favorite Brazilian TV shows, Caminho das Indias. (The following contains excerpts from a post original intended for publication on SAJA Forum.)

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India’s impact on the world is felt in myriad ways, but the form it takes can often come as a bit of a surprise. Members of the Indian diaspora are found throughout Africa, Oceania and the Caribbean, but there is one place few would expect; Brazil.

One of Brazil’s most popular television shows is soap opera is called ‘Caminho das Indias‘ or, ‘Way of the Indies.’ The show airs nightly after the 8PM news broadcast on Globo, the largest television network in Brazil. The show has three inter-linked plots that unfold simultaneously in Mumbai, Rio de Janeiro and Dubai and the cast features more than a dozen Portuguese-speaking, Brazilian-born Desis.

Tell me more …

Nearly lost amid the stories of startup heroes and plucky entrepreneurs is the plight of Brazil’s poor. While Sao Paulo is the cosmopolitan hub of industry and commerce, it most starkly embodies the work that must still be done to create financial opportunities for all. In a city of more than 21 million, the overwhelming majority are poor. In 2003, 21.5 percent of Brazil’s approximately 190 million citizens lived below the official poverty line according to Rural Poverty Portal.

While an economic miracle is happening in Brazil, over those without proper education are in danger of missing the boat. One of the keys to ensuring Brazil’s continued success as an economic and, soon, technological powerhouse, is through the education of its young people. Colleges schools such as USP (Universidade de São Paulo) and Unicamp (Universidade de Campinas) are where the country’s best computer scientists, engineers and doctors are trained and their education is free. However, the condition of public education at the primary level is abysmal, according to nearly every person with whom I spoke during five weeks of interviews.

Tell me more …

Investing venture capital funds in Brazilian startups is a lot like match-making, which would make Monashee’s Capital partners Eric Acher and Guillerme Decourt  part investor and one part Yenta. Today we sat down at their office to talk about educating the market about the role of a venture firm, taking the long view of investments, how to spot a winner and the importance of saying “no.”

“We’re not techy guys, we’re strategy-oriented,” Acher told me. As such, marrying the right idea with the right team is a strategy that Monashees views as central to their long term success. “An idea is a commodity,” Acher said. “The name of the game is compatibility.” And, just a like a  couple who saying their vows, Monashees is committed to the long-haul.

Tell me more …

In my last post about imitiation vs. innovation in Brazil and I used rock music to parallel what goes on in technology. Today I want to talk exclusively about innovation in music, because Brazil is one of those places that has a reputation for producing hits. In my opinion, few countries besides Jamaica and The U.S. are known for their breadth and depth of musical styles and hit-making abilities.

Rather than go into the history of Brazilian music (which I don’t know), I thought I would share with you the BBC’s take, which have conveniently been sliced into digestible episodes posted below. My classmate Luis first brought the series to my attention.

• Section One deals with Brazil’s most famous form of traditional music, the Samba and its spread into the U.S. and beyond.

• Section Two is about Tropicalia music and the creative resistance of Brazilian musicians to two decades of military rule.

• Section Three starts around the time I was born and deals with contemporary music such as Hip Hop and Baile Funky.

I hadn’t watched any of the episodes from Section Three before today and I fully intended to post them sight unseen and go to sleep. My highest praise is due for the BBC production team that put this masterpiece together. In a  matter of hours I have learned a tremendous amount about Brazilian history and culture, though from a 30,000 foot view.

The reality on the ground is much different and cannot be fit into vignettes, but I hope you will take as long as is required to view this amazing documentary series. If you’re short on time, you might skip ahead to Section Three.

I’m sure my non-Brazilian friends will find the following series enlightening. The production value and storytelling are unparalleled as documentaries go. Although it’s in English, I would be delighted to find out from a Brazilian if he or she has learned anything new about their history or music from these clips.

And now for your enjoyment and edification:

Brasil, Brasil – Samba to Bossa Nova -BBC 1

Part II Part III Part IV Part V Part VI

Tell me more …

One of the best things about traveling is the ability to reinvent oneself on the fly. In New York, I’ve become somewhat of a curmudgeon. After four years in town I’m not as filled with wide-eyed wonderment, or as willing to experiment. One consequence has been my declining intake of live music, a significant departure from the days when I would trek to the Bronx or Brooklyn to see African Hip Hop or grime rappers at a moment’s notice. Expensive drinks, snobby fans and long, late commutes home were just some of the reasons that come to mind.

Not so in Brazil. Last night I attended my third concert in two weekends; a pretty good streak. Last weekend I saw Seu Chico, a group from the city of Pernambuco who cover songs by Brazilian legend, Chico Buarqe.  The venue, Studio SP,  which bills itself as an urban art space and performance hall on Rua Augusta, had a nice blend of grit and posh, with an upbeat crowd.  Even better were the cheap drinks, such as the “busca vida,” which was a mix of cachaça, extra cane sugar and lemon juice.

Of course, the highlight was the band itself. In spite of the fact they played covers, or perhaps because of it, they had the crowd enraptured, singing along loudly with every tune. While the lead singer looked a bit bereft, the group’s 19-year-old pianist, Vitor Araújo, stole the show.

Tell me more …

Yesterday I got to demo a revolution in the offing when I met with boo-box founder, Marco Gomes, and company CEO, Marcos Tanaka, at their headquarters in the Sao Paulo neighborhood of  Pinheros

By creating a tool that is “non-intrussive, yet elegant,” in the words of Tanaka, boo-box allows publishers to target ads based on images and content that appear within a post, leveraging the relationship they have with their audience to add value for all parties involved.

One cool feature I saw was a full-page ad for Marvel comics that expanded to inlcude old comic book covers and a video trailer for the movie ‘Iron Man.’ Those same slots could easily be used to show previous, related posts if a drag and drop feature were to be rolled out some day.

Image via CrunchBase

In 2007, boo-box was the first Brazilian startup to be mentioned in the American press while the company was still in a “pre-alpha” stage, Tanaka said. Michael Arrington of TechCrunch speculated, “this may be quick acquisition bait for Amazon or eBay.” Two years later, the company has partnered with Brazilian e-commerce heavyweights such as Buscape and Mercardo Livre, with shows no signs of slowing down. Twenty two-year-old Gomes wears the hat of CIO, which in American might stand for chief innovation officer. At boo-box, his job is to be constantly on the lookout for ways the company can reinvent itself through innovation.

The full rundown of our lengthy discussion is destined for another venue, so to avoid the risk of plagiarizing myself I won’t say much else. I will however share with you a remarkable lesson I learned. At one point during the afternoon, Tanaka told me his image of an American is a boy with a lemonade stand, or a girlscout selling cookies door-to-door. Brazil does not have an equivalent.

So simple and yet so poignant, that statement helped me to see how as Americans, entrepreneurship is practically part of our DNA.

Click to play

This picture is a few days old, but it shows Brazilian President Lula embracing the Pirate Bay co-founder, Peter Sunde. The “boys” at Pirate Bay made headlines with their new product, The Video Bay, that will function like YouTube, without displaying notices that copyrighted material has been removed. However, the release of Video Bay comes shortly after the founders were convicted of copyright violation by a Swedish judge and sentenced to one year in prison and $3.8 million in fines.

The accompanying entry by Brazilian scholar and cyberfreedom fighter, Sergio Amadeu, said that Lula defended freedom on the net and spoke to the importance of collaboration at conference in Porto Alegre attended by notable hackers and free software activists. He also posed for pictures with a convicted criminal, which is not something every elected leader would be willing to do. Granted, I have no sympathy for the record labels whose complaint led to Sunde’s conviction (which he and his co-defendants will appeal), but still.

When I was growing up, Richard Pang,  fled to Brazil after the fire he set in his parents’ Seattle warehouse killed four firefighters. He was eventually arrested on Ipanema Beach, by undercover agents, who said he confessed that he fled to Brazil because he knew he would could not be extradited on charges of murder. Nine months after his arrest by Federal agents, the Brazilian high court rules that he could be extradited to stand trial for the murder charges, though this was not part of the original extradition treaty between the U.S. and Brazil.

I just checked to see if Sweden and Brazil have an extradition treaty. They don’t. Perhaps Sunde is already thinking about hanging out with his new best pal, Lula,  and his Brazilian hacker buddies if his subsequent appeal is denied. Just a thought.

Thanks for the tip, Fabricio.

[Photo via: The 3oo]

During my visit to The Hub Sao Paulo, I spoke with Gilberto Jr., co-founder of Amanaie,  about the role of the Brazilian government in fostering innovation. He said that although the government has committed significant resources to hi tech investments, the money isn’t getting where it is supposed to go. Jr also challenged the notion that there are no startups in Brazil. Along with a small group of partners, Jr. launched a Web site called Startupi, which he said is like a Brazilian TechCrunch. Each week, Startupi profiles 5-10 homegrown startups.

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