The United States Embassy and Consulates in Brazil and the Department of State, in partnership with Partners of the Americas and SENAI, launched the second, Brazil-specific round, of the 100,000 Strong in  the  Americas  Innovation  Fund October 14. This signature hemispheric-wide initiative is designed to stimulate collaboration between Brazilian and U.S. higher education  institutions.

This new Innovation Fund competition will provide up to six (6) grants to support new partnerships between teams of higher education institutions in the United States and Brazil, with a special emphasis on including SENAI Institutes throughout Brazil. Teams of higher education institutions in the United States and Brazil are invited to form partnerships to create exchange programs that will lead to innovative training and workforce development opportunities for students at both their home and host institutions.

Chargé d’Affaires of the U.S. Embassy and Consulates in Brazil, Douglas Koneff, and the Director General of SENAI, Rafael Lucchesi, recorded remarks highlighting bilateral support for  this initiative.  Representatives of institutions which received Innovation Fund grants in previous competitions, including California State University – Fullerton and the State University of São Paulo (UNESP), highlighted the benefits of the partnerships created by the Innovation Fund awards. According to Koneff, the program “is one of our main programs to support partnerships in higher education in the Western Hemisphere and  we are committed to further strengthening the connections between universities, innovation institutes and other  professional and technical institutions.”  He added that this year, more institutions are eligible to compete, expanding opportunities for proposals from more SENAI teams.

SENAI Director General Rafael Lucchesi said, “Combined funding from SENAI and the U.S. Department of State will allow teams of Brazilians and U.S. institutions and students to seek to solve real-world problems in a collaborative and multi-cultural environment. We are happy to find partners with a shared vision at the U.S. State Department, U.S. Embassy in Brazil, and Partners of the Americas. I hope to see these teams collaborating in innovative solutions that bring the U.S. and Brazil closer together. ”

Thematic areas in this new 100K Brazil-USA Innovation Fund competition include: Environment and Climate Solutions; Health Sciences and Public Health; Artificial Intelligence; the Internet of Things; Cloud Computing; Education Technology (Distance/Virtual Education); Food and Agricultural Sciences; Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH); Biotechnology; Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM), among others.

Teams of higher education institutions in the United States and Brazil are invited to submit grant proposals to Partners of the Americas by the application deadline of February 15, 2022.

For more details, please see the Request for Proposals (RFP): www.100kstrongamericas.org/grants