Endeavor

tHE CItY's CHallEngEs The "gauchos" (the people born in Porto Alegre) are re- nowned for their strong regional identity. In Porto Alegre, over 34% of the population are afraid of starting a new ven- ture (the overall average is 26%). And almost 77% say they would prefer to spend less time on their business to focus on a better quality of life, a percentile above the national average. These cultural characteristics may have some effect on business growth, even though the city has the highest density of companies among the analyzed cities. Besides being afraid to open their own business, taking the first steps in doing so has proven more challenging for entrepre - neurs, the legal process of opening a company in Porto Alegre is both complicated and time consuming. Currently, it takes 245 days, a time spam four times greater than the average of the other cities: 63 days. This is mainly because, after the Even though the city doesn't hold any of the top posi- tions in the ranking for innovation, Porto Alegre stands out in the potential for generating ideas determinant, helping the state of Rio Grande do Sul become one of the top patents producing states in the country, be- hind São Paulo and at the same level as Minas Gerais. Tecnopuc, from PUC-RS, founded in the last decade, is one of the largest technology parks in the country and helps to explain this result. The park has a construct- ed area of more than 50,000m 2 and hosts around 120 companies (including: Dell, HP, Accenture, Totvs, among others), which employ 6,300 people, half of them with higher education. On top of having a huge space, the parks are home to laboratories, incubators and agencies that facilitate the connection between companies and fund university researcher projects. Within the Tecnopuc there's the Technology Transfer Office, which assesses the invention and guarantees the intellectual property, i.e helps entrepreneurs and researchers throughout the process of obtaining patents. tHE CItY's BEst praCtICE CasE incident at the nightclub kiss, in early 2013, the Fire Department has become more demanding and is taking about seven months to formalize a permit for an establishment. Finally, another limiting factor is the fact the state capital has had a modest recent growth, despite having the 7 th largest GDP of Brazilian cities: between 2009 and 2011, Porto Alegre had an average real growth of 0.88% per year, the ab- solute worst result among the cities analyzed. Porto Alegre South Best score for each pillar 5 4 6 7 8 9 67 Value Position Regulatory Enviornment 5.45 9 th Infrastructure 5.76 7 th Market Conditions 5.34 9 th Access to Capital 6.57 4 th Innovation 5.87 7 th Human Capital 6.91 3 rd Culture 5.10 11 thv Regulatory Environment Culture Infrastructure Access to Capital Innovation Human Capital Market Conditions

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