Why it's time to start studying Portuguese

First, there was speculation in the press that Brazil's President, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, might be the next President of the World Bank. Then Moody's upgraded Brazil's debt to investment grade, citing its resilience in the crisis and bright future growth prospects. And just last week the International Olympic Committee announced that the 2016 Olympic Games would be held in Rio de Janeiro, with Lula simply ebullient:

We are not a second-rate country, we are a first-rate country and this is what this victory means.

To top off my case that it's time to start studying Portuguese, the Brazilian city of Florianópolis (pictured) will be hosting one of the coolest conferences later this month. Between October 26-30 infoDev will be running the third Global Forum on Innovation & Entrepreneurship. On-line registration is open through the 18th. Lula explained after last week's announcement that Brazil would "sleep less, think more, and work much harder." The Global Forum would probably be a good place to start.

Update: Over at the World Bank's Growth and Crisis blog, Ihssane Loudiyi reports on a recently released annual socioeconomic survey conducted by the Brazilian government. The long and short of it: Brazil continues to improve along many measures of social and economic progress. (Although we must add a caveat that the results are for 2008, so some of the impact of the crisis may not yet be apparent.) Here is more info about the survey.  

(Photo Credit: Armando Vernaglia)