Event Coverage: Brasil Softex

For those that do not know we were at Brazil Softex to what was in store for us (South Africa) from the Brazilians in the coming years and in general. So for those that do not know the event was here to showcase Brazilian culture to South Africa but more so we went to see the seminar on their take on software exchange between South Africa and Brazil.

So on Friday 15th June we (from Technorant) were at the Brazilian Sensational Experience but more importantly the (2 hour) seminar which was regarding technology opportunities between South Africa and Brazil. Probably one of the underlying factors was how South African companies can help companies from Brazil to break into the English speaking markets by being an intermediary and vice versa.

One of the more other important topics was the Digital Standard which is being introduced/pushed into the S.A market. The benefits which were mentioned are numerous ranging from Government Services to education not leaving out the clearer signal (obviously). It was said that every province should have 4 channels which are for the government to use which might work in S.A but how well I am not sure. The estimated timeline for the project if they started now would be done around 2020. When you look at the Brazilians who already have the standard in place but completely removing analogue from the picture will only happen by 2015. As great an idea as it is the costs are a lot and for a country plagued with corruption I wonder if the project will be completed.

Moving on, the other interesting part of the seminar was the talk on Open Source software. So it seems that a company in Brazil has developed a piece of Open source software for the government to implement in their public transport industry. The software is fairly simple (ensuring or at the least hoping people in this country will not destroy it) and universal that almost any country can probably use it. They are pushing it to be introduced into South Africa all well and good but in South Africa the main form transport is not trains or busses (not to say they are not used a lot) but rather Tax/Mini buses. So it’s a big iffy situation.

And so that brings an end to our brief look at the tech seminar portion of the Brazil Sensational Experience held at the SCC. There was a lot of other stuff going on but nothing really connected to the technology field.