Brazil. Not just soccer, beaches and carnivals. Emerging global power with many greats.

To be honest, I have heard more about Brazil’s fun side than the business side.  Brazil is famous for the champion soccer teams, Cristo Redentor the Status of Christ the Redeemer,  the Amazon River and incredible rainforests (that keep my hubby glued to Natgeo Channel), beautiful sun-kissed beaches of Copacobana and Ipanaema (made famous by Barry Manilow's song and Girl from Ipanaema song), sexy bikini’s and the uber sexy Brazilian wax, samba dancing and bossa-nova music (that gets my feet and body moving), and of course the Rio carnival with the colourful costumes, Churrasco (eat as much as you want grilled meat meal restaurants), one of my favourite drinks Caipirinha made with cacacha, and coffee for sobering up!

As I went about to find out more about the host country for my IBM Corporate Service Cops mission, I found out that Brazil is not just a huge regional power in Latin America, but also a middle power in international affairs (as a founding member of the United Nations) and an emerging global power.  

Did you know that Brazil is the world’s fifth largest by geographical area 27,000 km² (38 times of Singapore’s 710 km²)?  It is the fifth most populated country with 198.7 million people, the seventh largest by nominal GDP and the seventh by purchasing power. Officially called the Federative Republic of Brazil, it is the largest country in both South America and the Latin American region, occupying 47 percent of the South American continent.  

This is for my coffee lover friends: Coffee production in Brazil is responsible for a third of all coffee, making Brazil the world’s largest producer of coffee for the last 150 years!!! The country is unrivaled in total production of green coffee, Arabica coffee and instant coffee.  It produces twice the amount of Vietnam, the second largest producer, followed by Indonesia and Colombia.  Some 3.5 million people are involved in 220,000 coffee farms covering 27,000 km² of the country.  Brazil itself is the second largest consumer of coffee after the United States, and is together with Ethopia the only coffee producer with a large domestic consumption.

For my history buff friends: Brazil was a Portugese colony with the landing of Pedro Alvares Cabral at Porto Seguro until 1808,  when  the capital of empire from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro after Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Portual. Brazil later became part of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves, gained independence in 1822 with the creation of the Empire of Brazil, and became a presidential republic in 1889.  Brazil’s current constitution is defined as a federal republic in 1988, composed of the union of the Federal District, 26 states and 5,564 municipalities.  Brazil’s President Dilma Rouseff is a lady!

And I also found out that IBM’s commitment to Brazil dates back to 1917, with offices today in several cities. IBM Corporate Service Corps activity in Brazil started in 2009 and has since seen 16 teams assigned to 8 cities.  With CSC Team 17 of which I am a part of, we will add on 1 new team, 1 new city Fortaleza and 1 new state Ceará where  IBM has a geo expansion team presence.

Here are the 17 CSC Brazil team deployments: Sao Paulo (Teams 1 & 2 in 2009), Campinas in the So Paulo state (Teams 3 & 4 in 2010), Belo Horizonte in the south-eastern state of Minas Gerais (Teams 5 & 6 in 2010 & Team 13 in 2012), Rio de Janeiro (Teams 7 & 8 in 2010), Porto Alegre in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul (Teams 9 & 10 in 2011), Curitiba in the southern state of Curitiba (Teams 11 in 2011), Recife in the North region (Team 12 in 2012 & Team 16 in 2013), Uberlandia (Team 14 in 2013), Joinville in the southern Santa Catarina State (Team 15 in 2013), and now Fortaleza in the Northeastern state of Ceará (Team 17 in 2014!).

The teams have addressed needs ranging from community-involved education in underserved areas, diversity in entrepreneurship, violence prevention, scientific education, digital inclusion, and digital entrepreneurship.

I hope that Team Brazil 17 does a good job in CSC’s foray into Fortaleza and that IBM will be invited back to the state of Ceará again!