Agência Brasil
Rio de Janeiro – A study by Global Monitor in 31 countries on five continents shows that Brazil has risen from the seventh to the sixth in the entrepreneurship rank. According to the study, 12.9% of the labour in the country is opening new enterprises or has owned a business for less than one and a half years. This represents a total of 13.5 million enterprising Brazilians.
Fifty-three teams of university students from the state of Rio de Janeiro have enrolled in the state phase of the Support Service to the Small Business (Sebrae) 2004 Challenge. The objective of the Challenge is to spread entrepreneurial culture between Brazilian students in all areas.
The manager of Sebrae Challenge in Rio de Janeiro, Fabiana Pereira, stated that the expectation is to exceed the 5,000 participants of 2003, reaching 6,000 competitors this year. In the whole of Brazil, the target is to total 65,000 participants, against the 54,000 participants registered in 2003.
Today, Sebrae started a campaign to publicise the Challenge throughout Brazil, including billboards, and movie theatre ads, aiming at greater participation.
Fabiana Pereira says that the university students should hurry up and enrol their teams. If they do so in this initial phase, they will be able to compete for the so-called warm-up prizes.
The winning team in Rio de Janeiro will be able to participate in courses at the Sebrae in that state, and will win a trophy. The prize for the team that wins nationally will be an international trip to a company incubator centre, specialized in the entrepreneurial culture, where they will be shown a series of projects in progress.
Fabiana Pereira stated that the Sebrae Challenge project intends to reach a universe of people normally not included in management processes, such as doctors, vets, physical education teachers, and psychologists.
Enrolment in the project finishes on June 11. It can only be done on site www.desafio.sebrae.com.br, informed Fabiana Pereira. Teams should total between three and five participants. They do not necessarily have to be from the same university. The enrolment fee is around US$ 9,00.
