Technology, Innovation, and Games Will Soon Stir up the Island of Santa Catarina

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – “Games promote learning in mathematics, logic, they are fun, they stimulate reflexes, and they are also entertaining,” says gamer Arthur Nunes, a businessman in the sector focused on children’s games. Nunes is in the organization of the 1ª Copa ACATE de Futebol Digital (“1st ACATE Digital Football Cup”), which will be held in Florianópolis, the capital of Santa Catarina.

The championship is part of “Floripa Conecta”, a mega-event involving technology, gastronomy, games, design, marketing, music, fine arts, entrepreneurship, tourism, audiovisual production, and other experiences. The event is expected to involve 65,000 people between August 9th and 18th.

With cash awards, “the championship features both amateurs and professionals. The amateur games will be played between Florianópolis technology companies that are very strong in this segment. It will be like the FIFA championship. And the professionals will be with the Federation of Sports of Santa Catarina, which will promote some final matches. Among the games we will have “Lol, CS and Super Smash Bros”, explains Arthur Nunes.

The gaming industry, combined with technology as a whole, has been driving the island. With more than 44 beaches, Florianópolis has eighteen startup centers besides Sapiens Parque also focused on technology. The Digital Football World Cup will take place in four of these locations: Primavera, Downtown, Soho, and Sapiens.

Arthur Nunes is a passionate gamer. “It’s a clean and very rich industry. You produce a game for the whole world and not just for one location. You sell it to the whole world. It’s a very big market, very good and promising.”

Job generation emerges from new areas which are growing rapidly. “The creative industry gathers many talents. To develop a game you need the 3D artist, the 2D artist, the animator, the sound designer, the voices, in short, it’s an interesting variety”, Nunes emphasizes.

“Many relevant projects happen here in Santa Catarina, such as “Hoplon“, a company that develops a “moba” (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) for cars; and other smaller companies that are also standing out in the market. Like “Cat Nigiri“, the “Plot Kids” among others.”

Games produced in Santa Catarina

During the Stun Game Festival, the final games of the championship will be held on August 17th. Among other activities, there will be a market, entitled “Games of SC”, where games produced by the local community will be on offer.

“The game companies born out of small startups, three friends who get together with an idea for a game, promote it in the garage or at home, and then it takes shape and soon becomes a production company or a game studio. And like this the market has grown considerably in Santa Catarina,” states Arthur Nunes.

Floripa Conecta

Floripa Conecta’s website announces that the program includes twenty events, combining the different talents and potentials of the city. The events will be held in different parts of the island, at times simultaneously. Like the Orquestra de Baterias (“Battery Orchestra”); the Inova+Ação; the Stun Game Festival; Feira Viva a Cidade Especial Dia dos Pais (“Live Market, the Parent’s Special City”); Fenaostra; Innovation Summit Brasil; Deu Match – Impact Hub; Semana Balaclava (design workshops, video and content production, music, skateboard, etc.); Startup Summit and others.

Aimed at the technology sector, the Startup Summit, promoted by Sebrae/SC in partnership with the Catarinense Technology Association (ACATE) already counts on more than 100 confirmed speakers, national and international, for a public of approximately 3,500 people. Among those confirmed are major international and domestic figures, among them: Uri Levine, co-founder of Waze; Ragnar Sass, co-founder of Pipedrive; Jaime de Paula, founder and CEO of Neoway; João Del Valle, co-founder and CEO of EBANX; Marcelo Loureiro, co-founder and CEO of Yellow/Grin; Eric Santos, co-founder and CEO of Digital Results; and Alex Corcioli, product director of Gympass.

Floripa, creative city

Affectionately called “Floripa”, the city has a talent for technology, since it is an island and cannot, therefore, have an industry that could cause an environmental impact. The city has numerous institutions of higher education. The technology sector has expanded and allied itself to the beauty of the city, with dazzling landscapes for those who like the sea, nature, gastronomy, culture and the “ballads” typical of capitals.

Marcelo Bohrer, the general coordinator of Floripa Conecta, refers to a recent study by the Escola Superior de Propaganda e Marketing (ESPM) (“School of Advertising and Marketing”), which positions Florianópolis at the top of cities with the greatest potential for development in the creative economy. “More and more we have “collarless” offices, with experimental lifestyles, with investments in knowledge and information, in addition to our unique environmental and cultural features”, he concludes.

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