Generations of Scientists and Engineers: Origins of the Computer Industry in Brazil

Abstract

Brazil today constitutes one of the major manufacturers of microcomputers in the world, a seemingly surprising feat for a country that many view as part of the Third World. How was it possible for a developing nation like Brazil to create a high-technology industry and join the exclusive club of highly industrialized countries like the United States, Japan, and Germany as one of the major manufacturers of computers? Many political scientists, economists, and sociologists have tried to explain this exceptional phenomenon in primarily political terms. Most have studied the rise of nationalistic technocrats who began in the mid-1970s to implement a series of regulations that made it possible for Brazilian manufacturers to monopolize the domestic markets for minicomputers and microcomputers.