At 24, Marco Vanossi (pictured right) is a confident young man who knows how to sell himself. More importantly, he knows how to sell his ideas, specifically, a picture recognition application called Clickpic which, while it has yet to be launched, has earned him a guest spot on one of Brazil’s biggest television chat shows, o Progama do Jô, or Jô’s Show.
He drew gasps from his wise-cracking host Jô Soares and the studio audience when he snapped a picture of a newspaper photo of a soccer player scoring a goal and instantly called up a YouYube video of the same goal on his tablet. But Clickpic, is set to attract more than an initial R$500,000 (US $284,000) angel investment.
Fiercely intelligent, self-starting, and as at home in America as he is in Brazil, Vanossi is typical of a new generation of Brazilian tech innovators that is making Silicon Valley sit up and take notice. Diego Remus, who launched the Brazilian blog startupi in 2008, says the buzz is building. “Everyone is asking about what the Brazilians are doing… could I get to do it with them? It’s very innovative.” The region’s tech sector even has a catchy, if ungainly, moniker: “Brasilicon Valley.”
