Endeavor

tHE CItY's CHallEngEs Despite being the city of the famous Porto Digital, Recife still faces challenges in regard to fostering innovation. The state of Pernambuco is the least to invest in innovation, with 0.77% of the budget for the promotion of science and techno- logy — the lowest rate of all the analyzed cities' states. Also the companies invest very little in this area, a fact that places them in the second least favorable position among the capitals with least number of private revenue investments, only ahead Salvador. In addition to low investment, skilled labor may be missing in Recife, the rates shown in this study point that there are very few employees in areas related to technology. Among the causes of this is also the common problem faced by North and Northeast capitals: quality higher education. Only 17% have a university degree, and of those programs few are deemed qualified, where only 1 in 6 courses are well evaluated in ENADE, while the average is 1 for every 4 courses in the capitals analyzed. No less important is the local bureaucracy, which must be observed carefully: it takes on average almost 70 days to start a business in the city and to approve an architec - tural design another 120 days (1 month more than in other cities), the effective tax rate reaches 6.8%, also above the average predetermined rate of 5.2%, and the property tax is also high, second only to Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. Recife is famous for hosting the largest technology park in the country, Porto Digital, with about 200 innovative enterprises in the areas of information technology, communication and creative economy, among others. Created in the year 2000 as an ini- tiative from the private, public and academia sec- tors, Porto Digital works to improve various areas of Recife's entrepreneurial environment. Operates mainly as a support for businesses, connecting com- panies with universities and training skilled labor. In this sense, a project that stands out is Porto Digital's Human Capital Training Program, which aims to em- power employees of companies located in the park and students from partner educational institutions. In two years, the program has trained 6,400 people in the areas of digital accessibility, design and multi- media, innovation, entrepreneurship, management, English and programming. tHE CItY's BEst praCtICE CasE Recife is the fastest growing cap- ital: between 2008 and 2011, the average real growth was 6.04% Recife Northeast Best score for each pillar 5 4 6 7 8 9 77 Value Position Regulatory Enviornment 5.13 10 th Infrastructure 5.59 8 th Market Conditions 6.04 6 th Access to Capital 5.75 8 th Innovation 4.42 14 th Human Capital 5.17 11 th Culture 6.15 5 th Regulatory Environment Culture Infrastructure Access to Capital Innovation Human Capital Market Conditions

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