Information and Communication Technologies for Development

I arrived in Sao Paulo at 6 am after an all night flight. My host, Helio, picked me up at the airport, and drove me back to his house. The first thing I realized about Sao Paulo, or Sampa, is it is called by the natives, is just how huge it is. Twenty million people live here, and the traffic is horrendous. It took us 2 hours just to get from the airport to Helio's house, which is only about 30km away.

After I settled in, Helio went to work, and Jane's friend Joao picked me up. We rode on the back of a motorscooter one hour across town to an agency that helps low income people find jobs. The people at the agency were very kind, and showed us how they assist people in finding jobs. They also set up a few focus group interviews for people who were at the agency to talk with them about our idea. These people were interested, but I think they were looking for full time jobs, and not temporary work, which doesn't quite fit with our model of lots of jobs and resulting feedback. Nevertheless, it was good feedback and very good information. It was quite interesting to see the inefficiency in the system. The job database is only accessible in this office, and workers must come in person once a week to update their information. If there are no open jobs in the system on the day they come, they must come back again. They hope to make the system accessible online, but it will take a sizable investment and some time to migrate the system over.

From there, Joao took me to a company that he works with as an English teacher. We interviewed the top people of the HR (Human Resources) for this company, and asked them how they found work. I was very surprised to learn that they found most of their employees through websites where the employees paid, which were free to the company. This is in contrast to the U.S., but given that these jobs are higher skilled jobs and the supply of jobs in Brazil is an issue, it makes sense. Unfortunately, this didn't seem to be a great fit for Assured Labor, but it was very good to learn this perspective.

I have attached pictures from the two locations. More to come later!

- Joseph