With large corporations chipping in, Brazil's plan to send
100.000 talented students to top universities all over the world is
taking shape. A number of partner countries have
already signed agreements with the government of
President Dilma Roussef facilitating the accommodation of all those
students until 2015.
Europe struggles to have its share
Britain, France, Italy, Germany and the United States were first
targeted to realize Roussef's ambitious Science Without Borders (SWB) agenda. A number
of additional countries like Canada, Australia and even some
European ones like Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain
have stepped up their efforts by now to have their share in this
initiative.
The United States are especially active in this respect. Only
yesterday, Obama's Secretary of State Hillary Clinton addressed Brazil's foreign minister at the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce explicitly referring to the SWB project and the
U.S. role in it. She refers to Brazil's "inspiring success story"
and emphasizes the need to create "more cooperation and partnership
between and among our universities, our science and tech
sectors."
Clinton's speech on Sciences Without
Borders
"We are developing strong habits of partnership and cooperation.
And that is not, as you know so well, a job solely for governments.
In fact, it is actually more the job for the private sectors, our
universities, our civil societies, our citizens. And therefore, we
need to draw on all sources of our respective national strengths to
build this partnership for the future. And I look out at this
audience, and I see many Americans whom I know well who are deeply
committed to doing just that."
"We see in Brazil an inspiring success story: a dynamic economy
that has lifted millions of people into the middle class; a country
that is helping to fuel the global economy; that produces
everything from commodities, of course, but also aerospace
technologies, whose goods and services are facing increasing demand
across the globe."
"But we know that the progress we wish to make is not going to
be measured alone by flight traffic or trade or investment figures,
or even by visas. We have to have more cooperation and partnership
between and among our universities, our science and tech sectors,
our civil societies. Now, Brazil knows how important it is for a
nation to invest in its people, and starting in the '90s, when I
was privileged to travel to Brazil, I have followed with great
interest the innovative social programs serving Brazil's children.
This tradition of innovation of conditional cash transfers and
other investments in the human beings of Brazil is paying off. You
can see the results. It's not only fueled the rapid expansion of
Brazil's middle class, but it has demonstrated that an economy
growing is not an end in itself; it is a means to improving the
lives of the people of a country, and Brazil is a model for
that."
"So now we want to do more to innovate together, and our two
presidents have launched path-breaking initiatives. President
Rousseff's Science without Borders program will send 100,000
Brazilian students to the world's top universities to study
science, technology, energy, and math - engineering and math, the
stem subjects. And we've already welcomed 700 of those Brazilian
students to the United States. We expect thousands more in the next
few years. And the State Department is working with our extensive
contacts in our higher education community to pave the way. We know
that the students who are here today are studying at universities
in 42 states, and many of their educational programs are supported
by the private sectors from both of our countries. This program is
an excellent complement to President Obama's educational
initiative, which is called 100,000 Strong in the Americas. Our
goal is to increase the numbers of Latin American and Caribbean
students in the United States to 100,000 each year, and we want to
send 100,000 American students to the region over the next 10 years
as well."
"I personally believe that having more interaction between our
young people, going north to south, east to west within our
hemisphere is one of the keys to that shared future. Educational
exchange programs like these will help us prepare the workforce to
give our students the skills, experiences, and relationships that a
global economy requires."