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An inspiring song here in Brazil goes: “Um passo à frente e você não está mais no mesmo lugar”— a step forward, and you’re not in the same place anymore. While singer Chico Science passed away before the tech boom, his words predicted the rapid transformation of the Brazilian startup world over the past half-decade. 

When we opened Google for Startups Campus Sao Paulo in 2016, Brazil was in a deep recession. Only slightly more than half of the population had access to the Internet, let alone used it daily. International funds were skeptical of the growth of our mere 5,000 startups, none of which were “unicorns” (companies valued at over $1 billion). 

Just five years later, there are now 141.6 million internet users in Brazil, now the world’sfifth-largest online population. The 250+ startups in our network have created more than 15,000 jobs and raised more than BRL 35 billion (USD $7 billion). Google for Startups Brazil has trained more than 30,000 entrepreneurs at more than 1,500 in-person and virtual events. The local startup ecosystem is growing so rapidly that in the three months since we finalized our five-year impact report the number of Brazilian unicorn startups has grown from 15 to 17, including six companies that graduated from Google for Startups programs. 

The story of Google in Brazil is deeply connected to this tech transformation. Our presence in the country kickstarted with theacquisition of local search engine startup Akwan. Ever since, Google for Startups’ mission has been very intentional: to help founders solve Brazil’s biggest challenges. Startups like fintech giant Nubank, which became the biggest digital bank in the worldby offering underbanked Brazilians fee-free credit cards; health-tech gamechangers like Vittude, which is making mental health care accessible to all; resources likeContabilizei that empower Brazilians to tackle bureaucracy; and digital platforms like Trakto that have reignited regional economies by helping local entrepreneurs learn digital skills. 

And who becomes a founder is changing, too. 88% of the startups in our network have women in leadership positions, 53% have a leader who identifies as LGBTQIA+, and 58% counted at least one Black leader.  While these are steps in the right direction, we still have a long way to go to level the playing field for aspiring entrepreneurs of all backgrounds. Over 56% of Brazilians self-identify as Black, but one-third of Black entrepreneurs in Brazil report being denied funding. So last year we launched the Google for Startups Black Founders Fund—the first of its kind in Brazil—to not only boost racial diversity in the startup ecosystem but also create economic opportunity for all Brazilians by supporting high-growth, Black-led companies. 

The past year also brought unprecedented devastation — and digital transformation — across our country. There have been more than 20 million cases of COVID-19 and over 570,000 deaths in Brazil, and unemployment hit an all-time high in March. Startups from the Campus Sao Paulo community fueled economic recovery by creating 2,000 jobs in 2020, a 33% increase over 2019. “The Google brand helped us forge relationships of trust,” said Lincoln Ando, CEO of idwall, a security tech startup that graduated from Google for Startups Residency and Accelerator programs and raised $38M during the pandemic. “We still have a lot to achieve in Brazil, but we see a big opportunity to take our mission even further.”

Each step forward presents new challenges, but reinventing the day-to-day is what startups do best. While I am incredibly proud of what Google for Startups has accomplished over the past five years, the real privilege is helping founders start, build, and grow the companies that will take Brazil—and the world—into the future.

Since 2009, Google has been supporting top graduate students who want to make an impact on the future of technology. The Google PhD Fellowship program recognises candidates doing important and innovative research in computer science and related fields. In Australia and New Zealand, the program focuses on early-stage candidates. Winners receive fellowships which include a monetary award of $15,000 AUD to cover stipend and other research related activities, as well as a Google Mentor who works on topics related to their field of study and provides guidance. In 2021, we’re pleased to announce four new PhD students in Australia who have been awarded fellowships for their outstanding efforts. 

Sampson Wong, Google PhD Fellowship in Algorithms, Optimisations and Markets, The University of Sydney

“Transport networks require regular monitoring and maintenance to sustain a high level of operability. As networks grow and as technologies improve, there is a rising demand for data-driven analysis of transport network data. This has resulted in governments and companies developing domain-specific tools to provide its citizens and users with the best recommendations. The speed and quality of these tools depend greatly on their fundamental building blocks. The goal of my thesis is to develop efficient algorithms for fundamental problems involving geometric movement data on transport networks. We use clustering and other algorithmic methods to detect commuting patterns in geometric movement data, and to select beneficial upgrades for a transport network.”

Theekshana Dissanayake, Google PhD Fellowship in Machine Learning, QUT

“Deep learning has shown great success in solving biosignal-based medical diagnostic problems. However, present solutions cannot generalise across multiple datasets captured from different experimental settings. Furthermore, the black-box nature of current solutions hinders the trust associated with the predictions made from a clinical perspective. This PhD research focuses on the generalisability and interpretability of deep learning models designed for biosignal-based medical diagnostics and considers both single and multi-channel biosignals (such as heart signals and brain signals using EEG and ECG).”

Xinlong Wang, Google PhD Fellowship in Machine Perception, Speech Technology and Computer Vision, The University of Adelaide

Xinlong’s research interests lie in computer vision and machine learning, specifically  in enabling machines to see and understand the environment. Xinlong’s research focuses on object-level recognition, including 2D/3D/video object detection and instance segmentation.

Yun Li, Google PhD Fellowship in Machine Learning, University of New South Wales 

“Deep learning has been demonstrating the potential to significantly revolutionise the practice of medicine and the delivery of healthcare. However, low volume, high sparsity, and poor quality of healthcare data and their diverse contexts may limit the efficacy of deep learning methods. In my research, we aim to develop a suite of robust and versatile few-shot machine learning methods to effectively discover personalised, transferable insightful knowledge with very limited data. Specifically, we have identified and proposed the solutions to 1) data-efficient methods for genomics sequencing; 2) medical image argumentation, 3) hierarchical multi-view data analysis; and 4) tinnitus diagnosis. We will continue to improve the explainability, transparency, and personalisation for better clinical translation. Our studies will have a broader impact on a wide range of practical scenarios such as genome study, medical diagnosis, drug discovery, and disease treatment.”

In supporting these Australian Fellows we recognise their significant academic achievements and hope that they will go on to be leaders in their respective fields. We look forward to building even stronger links between industry and academia to help support important research in Australia. You can find out more about the Google PhD Fellowship program here