Futurecom 2014 puts ICT industry on the agenda

The event will gather the main executives from Latin America to discuss themes such as the 5G future and the Third Platform impact on business

After two years in Rio de Janeiro, Futurecom, the largest ITC (Information Technology and Communication) event in Latin America, will once again be held in São Paulo. Fifteen thousand attendees from 52 countries are expected at Transamérica Expo Center on October 13-16. “We are expecting a 15% larger audience as compared to the last one,” says Luis Alberto Veiga, VP of Provisuale, the company organizing the event.

At the event, the main executives from the industry will meet to discuss market challenges. The main themes include the 5G future e the lack of qualified manpower in the technology industry. The event, whose exhibition area is over 22,000 square meters, features an International Congress, with more than 300 speakers and 4,000 delegates.

Global names such as Marco Patuano, CEO, Telecom Italia; Hans Vestberg, CEO, Ericsson, and Cristiano Amon, joint CEO, Qualcomm, confirmed presence; in addition to Brazilian and LATAM market leaders such as the chairmen and directors of regulatory agencies of Argentina, Colombia, Panama and Ecuador, and Saul Kattan Cohen, CEO, ETB Colombia, and Pedro Cortez, CEO, Telefonica Venezuela. Brazilian government authorities who confirmed presence include Paulo Bernardo, Minister of Communications, and João Batista de Rezende, Anatel (Brazilian Telecommunications Agency) chairman.

The CEOs of Brazil’s main carriers are also expected to attend. Antônio Carlos Valente (Telefonica/Vivo), Zeinal Bava (Oi), Carlos Zenteno (Claro), José Formoso (Embratel), Amos Genish (GVT), and Luis Alexandre (Algar) will discuss the situation in the telecommunications market.

This year’s Futurecom event will also highlight Innovation via Third Platform popularization. This is a set of technologies and services relating to the four keys guiding company investments for the coming years: cloud computing, big data, social business, and mobility.

“Those keys are interconnected concepts that, one way or another, meet the imperative need of making corporate information available on any device, any time anywhere,” says Laudálio Veiga Filho, CEO, Provisuale. “They also lead to sensitive themes such as the new Internet Code and the web neutrality.”

Start-up Competition. As it happened in the last edition, the innovative startup competition will be held for the second time during Futurecom, now in a strategic partnership with Startup Farm. Ten startups operating on relevant Technology themes will be carefully selected in view of their profile and attractiveness to present their business plans to an Investors Committee. “Brazil has innovation and synergy opportunities with the technology companies already operating here. Therefore we created the Startup Session to encourage entrepreneurship and the existing synergies,” says Laudálio.