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telecommunications equipment industry and 24% for the basic electronic material industry.
Similar proportions were found for technical occupations. As a result, the Campinas micro-region
has the fourth-largest density of technological occupations in the state, with 25.5 technology-
related jobs per 1,000 jobs, falling short only of Sao José dos Campos (30.8), Osasco (27.9) and
Sao Paulo (26.6), and the second-largest density of technical occupations (35.3), after Sao José
dos Campos (43.1). This in turn is reflected in outstanding technological density: 563 patents
were registered with INPI in the period 1999-2001, resulting in the fourth-largest density of
patents per 100,000 inhabitants (25), beaten only by Sao Carlos (29), Marilia (29) and Sao Paulo
(40). Furthermore, Campinas has 22 patents registered with USPTO. Five of them were
registered under the technological domain Information Technology, indicating the relative
importance of innovation in local ICT activities.
One of the most important factors in attracting these industries to the Campinas region is
the availability of skilled workers. This results from the excellent installed base of education and
research institutions, with strong scientific specialization in the various branches of engineering
and in exact and earth sciences. The region has five higher education institutions, led by the
University of Campinas (Unicamp); several institutions that manage technical schools, including
Ceeteps, Cotuca, Fatecs and Senai, with an ample supply of technical courses in electronics,
microelectronics, telecommunications, information technology, mechatronics, automations,
mechanics and chemistry, among others; and vocational training courses offered by Senai in
these same disciplines.
The Campinas region also has a sizable network of labs and R&D centers. Some of these
labs are very large and considered national benchmarks in their respective areas. A good example
is ABTLuS, which has 180 full-time professionals as well as trainees and interns, and provides
services to firms and institutions in research involving synchrotron light, nanostructures,
microcomponents, construction of scientific equipment, and proteins; CenPRA, with 230
researchers and 12 labs, offering services in ICT product and process quality, and ICT prototype
and product engineering, among others; CPqD, with more than 1,000 professionals and 20 labs
for product testing, field measurement of systems, fiber optic measurement, and lab management;
Embrapa, with 16 labs and experimental fields; and IAC and ITAL, each with nine R&D and
analysis centers. There are also several smaller centers with testing and essay labs, research
facilities and service providers in areas such as electro-electronics, telecommunications and
teleinformatics; software and hardware design and development; industrial design and product
engineering; quality in software, experiments with optical devices etc.
Both the education and research institutions and the R&D centers frequently generate new
firms as spin-offs from their ST&I activities. The most noteworthy example is that of Unicamp,
which at the start of 2004 registered the existence in the region of 78 firms originating in the
university’s research activities (see the website of Unicamp’s Innovation Agency
www.inova.unicamp.br). Of these 78 firms, 42 are engaged in ICT-related activities. One of the
most noteworthy examples is AsGa, which produces optoelectronic components for use in digital
data transmission systems.23
23 AsGa originated with groups of researchers from Unicamp, CPqD and Elebra. It won an outstanding reputation for
its ability to adapt to the new competitive environment of the second half of the 1990s, following the major
privatization wave in Brazil, when it succeeded in conserving a significant internal capacity for innovation (13% of
sales in 2002). Commanded by entrepreneur José Ripper, a former professor at Unicamp, the firm seems to have
found a promising market niche in the production and marketing of optoelectronic components and optical modems.
It ships to practically every new telecommunications service provider and equipment vendor in Brazil. The firm’s
success in today’s competitive environment and its ability to maintain a significant market share in its segment can
also be explained by its effective use of the facilities offered by governmental development agencies: it has